Dole, the country's largest importer of bananas, has moved its coolstore from Queen's Wharf in Auckland to make way for the Rugby World Cup "party central" premises there.
For two decades, Dole has used Shed 18 at the wharf to store its bananas which arrive, about 5 million at a time, every fortnight by ship.
Dole's New Zealand market representative Steve Barton says it feels like the end of an era, but there are advantages to moving the banana's cool store to Penrose, where the company already has a site.
The main benefit, he says, is that the storage and management of stock will be part of one operation.
''When we were at Queen's Wharf we had permanent staff there so we had two operations managing storage. Now it's down to one, which is more efficient.''
Dole is the official tournament supplier of fresh fruit to the Rugby World Cup.
