Seald Sweet International

Seald Sweet International is a citrus marketing company based out of Vero Beach, Florida, founded in 1909. The major role of the company is to provide growers around the world a resource for marketing their fruit to larger corporations, as well as providing a consistent source of fruit year round.Seald Sweet will be celebrating their 100 year anniversary in 2009.

Founding of Seald Sweet

Seald Sweet was founded in 1909 as The Florida Citrus Exchange, a grower-owned cooperative and Florida’s oldest and largest fresh citrus marketing company. The Florida Citrus Exchange helped establish modern packinghouses, uniform standards for packing and grading and successful marketing programs. During its first year, the Exchange directed the sale of 1.25 million boxes of fruit produced by member-growers.

In the years to follow, more packinghouses were established and standardization of grading and packing methods continued to progress. Better grading methods resulted in a finer quality of fruit, which in turn, inspired the development of two nationally-known trademarked brands of Florida citrus -- Seald Sweet and Mor-Juice.

Changes in the Industry

Years after its formation, the Florida Citrus Exchange continued to initiate sweeping changes within the industry, such as improved shipping methods and marketing on an international scale, including the launch of its most successful promotional campaign to date that touts the benefits of citrus to a healthy lifestyle.

In 1969, in celebration of the grower-owned cooperative's 50th anniversary, the Florida Citrus Exchange officially became Seald Sweet Growers, Inc., to reflect the standards and prestige of the cooperative’s highest quality label.

In the years to follow, Seald Sweet continued to grow, representing increasing numbers of growers, packinghouses, and hundreds of thousands of cultivated acres of citrus located in all of Florida's growing regions. Seald Sweet continued to build programs shipping millions of citrus each season to chain stores, wholesalers and terminal markets in the U.S, Canada, Europe, Japan, Pacific Rim and Latin America.

eald Sweet's Growth

In 1998, Seald Sweet joined with UniVeg and De Weide Blik America to form Seald Sweet LLC. Univeg / De Weide Blik is a Belgian holding company, specializing in the processing, trading, production, and distribution of a wide range of produce, convenience foods, plants and flowers. In 2004 Univeg increased its investment in Seald Sweet LLC, forming Seald Sweet International, expanding its domestic sourcing in California, Texas and its international imports programs.

Today, Seald Sweet International continues to grow and expand its product offering through its sister companies (Univeg, Bocchi, etc.) while continuing to specialize in the full citrus category, providing the finest, globally sourced citrus available year-round. With over 98 years of experience in growing, packing and marketing fruit from Florida, Texas, California and growing regions around the world, Seald Sweet International is the global source for quality year-round citrus.

External links

*Seald Sweet International's Website - [http://www.sealdsweet.com/ http://www.sealdsweet.com/]
*Univeg - [http://univeg.com/ http://univeg.com/]
*Bocchi - [http://www.bocchigroup.com/eng/group.asp http://www.bocchigroup.com/eng/group.asp]