Growing Companiesfor International Trade

ALDI, an international grocery store company out of Germany that built its Florida headquarters and a $40 million 500,000-square-foot distribution center in Haines City in eastern Polk County, sells more than 1,400 of the most frequently purchased grocery and household items in non-bulk packaging. In its 2008 report, Supermarket News ranked ALDI 25th in U.S. grocery chains in terms of gross sales. More than 1,000 ALDI stores are situated primarily in the Midwest and along the East Coast.

Port Manatee is one of Florida's largest and fastest growing deepwater seaports. Located in the eastern Gulf of Mexico at the entrance to Tampa Bay, Port Manatee is the closest U.S. deepwater seaport to the Panama Canal – providing shippers with speedy access to Pacific Rim markets. The port and its partners move approximately 9 million tons of containerized, breakbulk, bulk and project cargo each year including fresh produce, forestry products, petroleum products, citrus juice products, fertilizer, steel, aluminum, automobiles, cement, aggregate and more.

The Port of Tampa is working to expand container traffic after a long and successful history as one of the world's premier ports for the shipment of fertilizer and petroleum products around the globe. Tampa now handles much of the building materials needed to support construction in central Florida, including cement, aggregate, lumber and steel, and is rapidly growing its worldwide container business led by success of Zim Integrated Shipping Services, an Asia-Gulf Express service.

Celestar Corporation is comprised primarily of former military and government civilian personnel who have recent intelligence, operations, and planning experience and are able to support and manage critical projects.

Fluitec provides lubricant users with condition monitoring technologies, contamination control solutions and consulting services around the globe. The company's technologies and expertise assist customers in meeting green initiatives by improving their operational efficiency and reducing their disposal streams.

Exactech, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets, distributes and sells orthopedic implant devices, related surgical instrumentation and biologic services to hospitals and physicians in the United States and internationally.