Page 6 - World Trade Center - 2018

Ripple Effect: Ecolab
(formerly Royal Pest)
Royal Pest Control was a local, family-owned pest control business when officials from Chile first visited the Port of Wilmington in 1988.
“The ships are just getting bigger and bigger,” DeDonato said. “We used to be able to do a ship in one night, and now it takes us two. It’s just so much fruit that comes in.”
Royal Pest also spent years investing in people and in relationships at the port, especially with long-term partners like Wilmington Tug and the Produce Management Association (all members of World Trade Center Wilmington), forming an informal group they sometimes call Team Wilmington. It’s relationships like those that came into play after a major Chilean earthquake in 2010.
“We asked them, ‘What can we do?’ ” DeDonato said. “We had traveled to Chile and the people there are just wonderful. They asked us to send porta-potties, and also big sheets of sheet metal, because they needed roofs. So, on a ship going back to Chile, we sent a bunch of porta-potties, about 40 in all, along with sheet metal. Since we had put a little sticker on it that said ‘Team Wilmington,’ they knew it was from us.”
DeDonato said Ecolab looks to continue that tradition and give even more opportunities to the people at Royal Pest who have been in their jobs for years. But the core of the work at the port will remain the same.
“You’re not going to see Royal Fumigation around the port anymore,” DeDonato said. “You’re going to see Ecolab. But it’s the same people the same quality, and the same history.”
“They were looking for places to bring their fresh produce, and someone from one of the big fruit importers asked us if we fumigate,” said Rick DeDonato, marketing director for Royal Pest Solutions.
“ ‘Sure’, we answered. And then we figured out how to do it.”
RETAIL
And they did. But after 30 years of protecting the food supply coming into the port,. Royal Pest has been purchased by Ecolab, the global leader in water, hygiene and energy technology and services, as part of its acquisition of three strategically aligned U.S. pest services businesses that provide specialized capabilities in food storage. The fact that all this happens as Gulftainer is looking to expand
the port positions them well to be a partner in that expansion.
“We think the timing is almost kismet,” DeDonato said. “It’s a rising tide that raises all ships, and we’re here for it. We can handle it.”
Royal Pest is part of the infrastructure at the Port of Wilmington. Roy Richardson, while president of Royal Pest Solutions, invented and patented an elevated tarp system, specialized tubing, and an automated weighting system that made it possible to fumigate the contents of an incoming ship in just 24 hours – a timeline that might have to expand as the port grows.
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