Series 3 Episode 11
Bananas: Cutting waste on retail's biggest fruit
Reducing banana waste is a big issue. Bananas are one of retail's best sellers and one of its biggest waste lines. Around a third of banana waste is simply fruit judged too yellow, and much of the rest comes down to handling and shopper habits.
In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to food waste expert Richard Thalemann about a recent ECR meeting and a visit to a Dublin ripening factory. They cover how ripening upstream sets shelf life in store, a box-packing "magic trick" that prevents damage but almost nobody uses, the rise of banana hammocks, and how single-price bananas may be quietly creating more food waste. The takeaway: cutting banana waste means joining up handling, merchandising, pricing and new uses for imperfect fruit, a theme running through ECR research on the true cost of unsold food.
Podcast summary
Reducing banana waste is one of the quiet giant issues of retail loss. Bananas are among the single biggest selling categories in any supermarket, and also one of the biggest sources of food waste, yet much of that waste comes down to things retailers can change. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock is joined by Richard Thalemann, the food waste expert supporting ECR Retail Loss and a 30 year veteran of Tesco and retail, to unpack what a recent ECR meeting, and a visit to a ripening factory in Dublin, revealed.
The numbers tell their own story. Around 36% of banana waste is fruit judged too yellow or overripe, 29% is bruised or crushed, 14% is single bananas left behind, and 7% is the wrong size. Behind those figures sits a mix of upstream ripening decisions, in-store handling and a real behavioural psychology around which bananas shoppers will pick. Colin and Richard explore how ripening sets shelf life, a box-packing “magic trick” that almost nobody uses, the rise of banana hammocks, and how single-price bananas may be creating more food waste, a theme that connects to wider ECR work on the true cost of unsold food.
Banana waste in retail: the full conversation
Why bananas waste so much
COLIN:
Hello, my name’s Colin Peacock, and each episode of our Sell More and Lose Less podcast features sometimes an academic and sometimes an expert in the field of retail or CPG. Today we’re speaking to Richard Thalemann, who has 30-plus years of experience in retail and food waste, and has really helped the ECR Food Waste Working Group look at this problem. Today we’re going to talk about bananas and banana waste. We actually went to a banana ripening factory in Dublin. This is one of the single biggest areas of loss and waste for retail, one of the single biggest product categories and also one of the top-selling categories. Richard, bananas. What does that mean to you in terms of food waste?
RICHARD:
Well, it was completely bananas, some of the things we were looking at. It’s very niche, but extremely high volume in sales. There’s probably a lot more to it than you think from the surface. The note I’ve got in front of me was that the core causes of banana waste were 36% being too yellow or perceived to be overripe, 29% bruised or crushed, 14% the single bananas left behind, which became a topic in itself, and 7% wrong size. So there’s a lot more to it than handling in store. There’s a real behavioural psychology with customers around which bananas they pick, by ripeness, size, damage, even smell.
And then there’s the move by lots of retailers towards single-price bananas, which, if you dig into it, could be causing waste as well. Recently I went into a retailer and took home some bananas to my kids, and even they noticed and said, why did you buy such big bananas? They were all single price, and probably twice the size of the others. At the beginning of the day everybody buys the bigger bananas because it’s better value, and you’re left at the end of the day with the small, kid-sized ones and a perception that it’s not great value.
How upstream ripening sets store shelf life
COLIN:
Let’s start with one of the things that properly opened my eyes, the chance to visit the ripening factory. According to some of the producers and distributors, how the bananas are ripened seems to have an impact on what happens in the store. What were your takeaways on how upstream impacts the store?
RICHARD:
I couldn’t quite make that visit, but I remember people talking about it. There obviously is an impact further upstream, and that’s probably what they’re trying to work on, reducing that impact from manufacturing all the way through to retail. It’s a bit like extending the date life on other pre-packed products.
COLIN:
Basically it boils down to either you ripen them really quickly, which lowers your cost as a producer and distributor but means more sensitivity in the store, or you ripen them slowly, which gives you longer shelf life in the store. So it boils down to the shelf life in the store, but that’s determined upstream, it would seem.
RICHARD:
I agree. There’s probably a middle ground, and it all comes down to cost and how much retailers, or customers, are willing to pay for it. At the end of the day it comes down to the cost to the customer.
The magic trick, hammocks and merchandising
COLIN:
One of the things we’ve talked about a lot is that eggs and bananas have something in common, which is perception. Everyone thinks eggs break easily, but they never consider that bananas are probably more fragile.
RICHARD:
For sure. One of the biggest takeaways was when we spoke to Fyffes, and they talked about what they called the magic trick. I had 20 years in Tesco and never once saw it. All banana producers put them in the box the same way. The magic trick is that you take the lid off, pull the plastic over the sides, put the lid back on, turn it upside down and remove it, and it turns all the bananas the right way up. You can pick them up without damaging them. Yet I’ve still to go into a shop where they’ve done it. It takes a few extra seconds, but the payoff is fewer damages and an easier pick-up for customers. When you pick bananas out of those boxes upside down, you have to pull them, which pulls them apart anyway.
COLIN:
And then even back-stacking the boxes at an angle to each other, rather than directly on top, was something we heard about for the first time. The other thing was around fixtures. We heard a bit about fixtures, didn’t we?
RICHARD:
Merchandising has always been a big thing, and even in my time it changed so many times. The one thing they landed on were the banana hammocks, which everybody seems to use now, because for presentation and ripening it’s the go-to solution. But it goes back to these boxes. Maybe they don’t necessarily need the hammocks if they knew how to open and use the boxes correctly, because it’s almost a pre-presented solution in a box. It might be as simple as printing the instructions on the outside of the box.
Single bananas, behaviour and secondary uses
COLIN:
In terms of losses, it seems the loose bananas were where the biggest struggles were, and organic perhaps, because of the higher price. Did you hear about any new interventions for those high-shrink, high-waste bananas?
RICHARD:
We heard about a study on putting cartoon faces on bananas. It was interesting to find that the emotional attachment to a banana made people buy bananas. One other retailer mentioned they moved single bananas to the front of the shop or to the checkouts as almost an impulse purchase, and I thought that was clever, because even if you didn’t come in for bananas and you’re queuing at the checkout, you might pick one up as a snack. The single banana thing is probably even more of an issue now if you’re charging by the banana, because people pull off only the amount they want. Before, you’d just pick up a bunch, because by weight it was okay. But people become more mindful when they’re protecting how much money they have, going, I actually only need four bananas. So we’re going to be left with a lot more single bananas, and we need some solutions to help with that.
COLIN:
There was a lot in there, and the recording is available to retailers if they want to revisit it. We will revisit bananas again. It will probably remain the highest seller and probably the highest waste line in stores for decades to come. But there were some pointers around looking upstream, the magic trick, and the markdowns. Anything else on your list?
RICHARD:
I really do agree that banana waste is reduced through a combination of all of those things: better handling, smarter merchandising, behavioural psychology and pricing strategies, and creating secondary uses for imperfect fruit. The last thing, at Fyffes, they were talking about dried banana covered in chocolate in packs. They’re creating a secondary route for unwanted bananas directly, which I thought was brilliant.
COLIN:
Yes, banana bread, banana beer, and now these banana chocolate things. Lovely. Thank you very much, Richard, that’s really helpful, and see you next time.
