Non-ILA stevedores make headway: Pacorini USA offers one-stop logistics service.(International Longshoremen's Association)(Company Profile)

They started small, handling irregular vessel calls at second-tier facilities in minor ports. But over the last two decades, stevedores that don't employ International Longshoremen's Association labor have become solidly established in Gulf and South Atlantic ports.

Pacorini USA is an example of how far they've come. The company is packaging its stevedoring with other logistics services to offer a turnkey shipping operation. Mario Casiano, the company's president, says the package that "Door-to-Door Logistics" service is normally offered only by brokers.

The innovation is the latests in a series by Trieste-based Pacorini Co., a family operation that specializes in warehousing metals Waded on the London Metals Exchange. In 1993, Roberto and Federico Pacorini opened one of the first bulk coffee-processing and storage plants in the U.S.--Silocaf, at the former public grain elevator at the Port of New Orleans. The bulk transport of coffee had prompted the Pacorinis to develop a high-tech, computerized system to clean and blend green coffee beans before roasting. The system offers higher consistency and …