DUDA marks 100 years with lettuce donation for SeaWorld manatees

Oviedo-based DUDA Farm Fresh Foods sent two pallets of romaine lettuce, 1,750 pounds in all, to SeaWorld Orlando for the manatees recovering at the park’s rescue center. The delivery gave DUDA’s 100-year milestone a practical edge: it was food for animals that need steady daily care, not a ceremonial photo stop.

SeaWorld Orlando says its manatee rescue and rehabilitation area is part of a five-acre Rescue Center behind the park, one of the few facilities authorized to rescue and rehabilitate ill, injured or orphaned manatees. United Parks & Resorts has said the Orlando site can care for up to 60 manatees at a time, the largest manatee critical-care capacity in Florida and the United States, after a 2022 expansion added 200,000 gallons of water and a new lift-floor pool.

The scale of the lettuce matters because the program uses it fast. SeaWorld Rescue uses about 60 boxes of lettuce a day, and the April 28 delivery from DUDA landed in the middle of that demand. Among the animals eating from the donation was Melby, the rescued manatee SeaWorld later returned to the wild on April 7 after it had been pulled from a storm drain in Melbourne Beach.

DUDA’s centennial added local weight to the shipment. The company says it was founded in 1926 and has spent a century rooted in family farming, sustainability and produce production. In Seminole County, where DUDA has long been a familiar agricultural name, the donation showed how a local grower can support a conservation program far beyond county lines while still staying close to its own farm identity.

The relationship also fits a broader shift in how SeaWorld feeds its manatees. In August 2024, the park announced a partnership with 4Roots to provide locally grown lettuce from a greenhouse for the animals. SeaWorld says its first manatee rescue was in 1976, and since November 2017 it has responded to 607 manatee rescues. DUDA’s donation put a Seminole County company directly into that ongoing rescue pipeline, with romaine arriving as a working supply for a busy rehabilitation operation.