African fruit company
| African fruit company GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1912 |
| Seat | Hamburg , Germany |
| management | Jörg Doberstein and Stefan Kolb |
| Branch | Fruit trade |
| Website | www.afc-frucht.de |
The African Frucht-Compagnie GmbH (AFC) was a German planting and trading company that mainly operated in the German colony of Cameroon . It was founded in Hamburg in 1912 by acquiring the majority in the African Fruit Compagnie, Berlin, founded in 1910.
history
1912–1924 Foundation and development in Cameroon
The AFC initially dealt with the cultivation and sale of tropical products from the German colonies . She specialized in the cultivation of bananas in Cameroon , which were loaded in Tiko and unloaded in the port of Hamburg . They were mainly sold as dried fruits in Germany as so-called fig bananas .
The parent company F. Laeisz had two refrigerated ships built, the 3,600 GRT steamers Pionier and Pungo with around 3700 and 4,400 m³ refrigerated rooms, respectively, in order to also transport the fresh fruit bananas. They were delivered shortly before the First World War and were therefore no longer used to transport bananas. The Pungo became known as the auxiliary cruiser SMS Möve of the German Imperial Navy .
The AFC plantations were expropriated during the war when Cameroon was conquered by the Entente and taken over by Great Britain in 1916 .
1924–1950 reacquired in Cameroon
The German plantations in British Cameroon were auctioned off in London in 1924 due to a lack of profitability. To buy back the plantations, Fako Pflanzungen GmbH was founded in Germany in order to largely buy them for the previous German owners, who then took over and operated them again. Since the shipping company Laeisz did not have refrigerated ships again after the First World War, fig bananas were produced and shipped in normal general cargo ships.
In 1930, the Bremer Vulkan shipyard delivered the two new refrigerated ships Panther and Puma , each with around 4,400 m³ of refrigerated rooms, to the Laeisz shipping company, which took over the transport of bananas for the African fruit company. In 1931 the AFC planted around 3,000 hectares of bananas, processed around 240,000 bushes into fig bananas and transported around 570,000 bundles of fresh bananas with the Laeisz refrigerated ships. Another four refrigerated ships ( Pionier (II) , Pelikan , Pontos and Phyton ) followed until 1936, with which AFC was able to land fresh fruit bananas in Germany every week. The majority of these green-landed fruits were brought to eating maturity by the AFC in their own ripening facilities and sold in their own fruit shops.
During the Second World War the plantations were lost again; after that an extensive new beginning was necessary.
1950–2015 bananas from South and Central America
From 1950 bananas were imported from Colombia , Ecuador and Brazil and from 1957 the AFC concentrated all of its imports on Central and South America. The transport was initially carried out again on Laeisz refrigerated ships ( type Proteus and successors), later also on refrigerated ships from other shipping companies. In the mid-1960s, the mostly grown banana variety Gros Michel was no longer allowed to be planted due to Panama disease . Other types of bananas, such as the extremely pressure-sensitive Cavendish , which was not susceptible to Panama disease, replaced the Gros Michel. However, they were unsuitable for shipping in perennials, so the perennials were divided into small portions (hands) in the country of production and packed well protected in cardboard boxes.
In 1968, ALBA, a joint venture between AFC and EDEKA-Fruchtkontor, established the branded banana with the name Onkel Tuca on the market.
Around 1950 per capita consumption in Germany was 1.9 kg, which had multiplied to 11.3 kg by 1987.
Web links
literature
- HG Prager: F. Laeisz from freighter to bulk carrier. Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1974
- Kerstin Wilke: “The German Banana” - Economic and cultural history of the banana in the German Empire 1900-1939. Dissertation, University of Hanover 2004, online version (pdf) .
Individual evidence
- ↑ With the Versailles Treaty of 1919, Cameroon officially became the property of the League of Nations , which thereupon gave a mandate to administer to Great Britain (one fifth) and France (four fifths).