The
United Fruit Company was an
American corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas), grown on Central and South American plantations, and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899, from the merger of
Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with
Andrew W. Preston's
Boston Fruit Company. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the
Caribbean coast of
Colombia,
Ecuador, and the
West Indies. Though it competed with the
Standard Fruit Company (later Dole Food Company) for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called
banana republics, such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.