* because Dole imports from the tropics which have a limited concept of seasons, so the ships rarely if ever sit unused (therefore it makes sense to own or lease)
* because Dole moves products from places way outside major shipping lanes and ports, hiring ships would be inconvenient
* even more so because Dole needs refrigerated ships making #2 worse
Your last item is not totally accurate: Refrigerated ships are the ones where the entire vessel is temperature controlled. What Dole needs is lots of power connections ("reefer plugs"). That's uncommon but not the same as a refrigerated ship. Last I knew, other companies partly use reefer ships (bananas in bulk) combined with loading into containers.
The benefit of a big refrigerated vessel is mostly when you have a big company importing ("importers") in huge quantities and then selling it to other companies. A single container is huge, but it is way less than a whole refrigerated vessel. Part of the reason why more bananas have been shipped in reefer containers is due to companies cutting out the importers.
Possibly related episode of 99% Invisible, about the invention & design of temperature controlled containers, to speed or slow the ripening of fruit while in transit so they're in peak condition on arrival:
Compare and contrast with BP, an oil company that owns a large fleet of tankers. The BP fleet never has the BP logo showing anywhere lest there be some Exxon Valdez scenario or some hijacking.
With bananas the local wildlife would probably be rather pleased if there was a 'banana spillage'.
Point being that there are other reasons for a ship having company logos on it.
Are they direct holdings or are they kept in a separate subsidiary of Dole? Would be interesting to note if they haul non direct competitor goods, there have to be other fruits and vegetables in the ports they frequent that Dole doesn't sell. Curious if they transport much back
I would be surprised if they were not a separate subsidiary of Dole.
There is usually no reason to have completely unrelated industries (especially when you depend on many companies in said industry to make your primary business function) as part of your main company, especially when, yes, as you stated, the non-related-industry sub-company will usually look for work to optimize its cash flow, ie, to not have idle assets that could be making money instead.
An example we're more use to: Amazon's AWS is a separate company that works for competitors to Amazon's other services (Netflix vs Prime Video, one of the Spotify customers (can't remember which) vs Prime Music, etc.
Bottom-line, 13 degrees centigrade is what you're aiming for along with 50 m3/h of airflow (50 cfm in US units.) Airflow because bananas ripen in the presence of ethylene and ripening bananas release ethylene. That's the reason putting bananas in a paper bag ripens them faster.
It seems simply financial engineering - Chiquitas sold the ships, then leased them back on long term contracts, but freed up a bunch of short-term cash
When major players are consolidating (CMA CGM and NOL, Cosco and CSCL) it makes no sense to have a four ship fleet.
Any company could easily accommodate their needs (refer capacity, cranes, etc)even cheaper given the fact that right now the dry and container market is at the lowest point ever.
This is the era to charter a vessel and not own one.
I don't think they keep the refrigerators. A couple of feed stores around here use containers for storage. Gotta be hotter than hell tossing 50lb bags of cattle feed in one of those things in middle of summer!
