Bananas

Citation

(2000), "Bananas", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 30 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2000.01730dab.006

Bananas

Bananas

The banana is the UK's most popular fruit, having overtaken apples in 1998. Annual sales are now a record £750 million, approximately 28 per cent of all fruit sales in the UK in terms of value. We each eat an estimated 25-30lb of the fruit each year or more than double the amount we ate just 15 years ago. Bananas are now bought by 98 per cent of households. Bananas are the most valuable food sold in supermarkets where over 80 per cent of all our food is bought. Over 75 per cent of bananas are sold through supermarkets and in the past 15 years the real price of the fruit has dropped by 35 per cent. The UK's first Fairtrade Mark bananas went on sale in January at the Co-op. The move signals a breakthrough in the campaign to support small, independent producers. Now they can by-pass multinational corporations to supply UK's favourite fruit. Fairtrade Mark bananas have been traded and produced to enable disadvantaged producers to get a fair deal. When UK shoppers choose Fairtrade Mark bananas they will have better bananas and help improve the lives of many poor producers in Costa Rica and Ghana.