Bananas

Despite common belief, bananas don’t grow on trees but rather on plants, as they are in fact a giant herb! With the right care and attention, it takes a year for the baby plant to grow into a 3-6 metre-high banana plant. When the plant blossoms, the bananas appear. They start as tiny straight, thin fingers, but as they grow, they fill out and turn upwards, seeking out the sun, and start curving to take on their distinctive smiley shape!

A special cover is wrapped around the fruit to protect it from wind and insects. Done properly, this creates a perfect micro-climate to help the fruit grow and stay in top quality condition. It also helps to avoid friction damage by leaves and aids in fruit development.

Bananas are harvested when they are green.  Each plant produces a single large stem carrying 100-200 bananas. Expert cutters select the fruit according to maturity, quality and thickness. Each stem is lowered gently onto the padded shoulder of a porter, who carries it a short distance to a cableway. A foam cushion is inserted between the “hands” to protect the fruit. Banana production is still very much a people business, as machines might damage the delicate fruit.

The careful treatment of bananas is enormously important throughout the whole banana journey. Once the bunch is cut from the plant, a race against times begins as the bio-chemical process of the banana starts. Despite the need for speed, bananas must be handled with great care. Even the slightest pressure can cause brown, unsightly spots on the sensitive peel. In the packing house, thorough quality controls take place. Parameters like size, grade and peel damages are controlled.

It’s important to wash the fruit to remove any residue and ensure it arrives in top condition. The bananas are washed twice, using recycled water. Unripened, green bananas exude a naturally-occurring latex which is removed by the water and has to be removed from the water before it can be used a second time. Recycling the water can reduce water use by up to 80%.

Once washed, our bananas are packed (all by hand) into protective boxes or trays, ready for the voyage to their final destination in the markets. Only bananas that meet Fyffes specifications receive our symbol of quality - the Fyffes blue label - applied by hand to each cluster. (Don’t worry, all the bananas are used, but not all of them get our blue label).

We use ships with state-of-the-art containers that keep the fruit in a form of hibernation at a constant temperature of 13.5°C; just cool enough to slow down the ripening process but not so cold that the bananas become chilled. In this controlled atmosphere, the bananas will remain in perfect condition. The journey may take between 6 and 14 days.

On arrival, the green bananas are sent to our special ripening centres where Fyffes teams check the fruit and decide how best to ripen it – every batch is different. Over 4-6 days, the starches within the banana begin to change into natural sugars and the green fruit ripens to a soft, creamy yellow. Only when they’re done will they leave our care and go to your local stores., from green to yellow

Most of the time the fruit is delivered to the retailers a little bit under ripe, so that it will be just perfect when it reaches your home. Retailers can specify a particular shade of yellow based upon a Fyffes colour chart. We can even do a mix of green and yellow fruit – some to eat now and some to eat later.