Lumper services in Miami

Miami is an import market before it is anything else. PortMiami, which brands itself the Cargo Gateway of the Americas, takes refrigerated produce, apparel and consumer goods off Caribbean, Central American and South American services, and Florida East Coast Railway runs on-dock intermodal there and at its Hialeah yard. Miami International Airport is the country's leading gateway for international air freight, and the perishables handlers on its cargo aprons pull flowers and fresh produce off freighters for same-day transloading. Port Everglades in Broward County adds container, petroleum and cruise volume, with an FEC intermodal container transfer facility alongside it.

Warehouse demand concentrates in Medley, Hialeah and the Airport West submarket around Doral, then follows the Palmetto Expressway and Florida's Turnpike north through Opa-locka, Miami Gardens and Pompano Beach into Broward and Palm Beach counties. Countyline Corporate Park in Hialeah and the Beacon Lakes park in Doral anchor the modern big-box stock. Publix, Amazon and Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, headquartered in Miramar, all run South Florida distribution in the corridor. I-95, I-75 and I-595 carry the long haul, and US 27 links the Redland farms to the docks.

Dock labor here is bilingual, reefer heavy and seasonal. Winter vegetables out of Homestead and the Redland move roughly December through April, cut flower volume spikes ahead of Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and cruise provisioning at both seaports keeps handload crews on weekends. Freight unloaders also stay busy on floor loaded import containers that arrive without pallets.

Last reviewed September 2026