Posts tagged bananas

Going bananas about Del Monte packaging

The launch of individually wrapped bananas by leading fresh produce multinational Fresh Del Monte has recently met with severe criticism from a widespread number of journalists, commentators and bloggers.

The product, first launched in late 2009 and featured in Eurofruit Magazine at the start of 2010, has evidently raised concerns over the single-finger packs’ environmental impact, despite the company’s claims that packaging single bananas can actually improve the product’s green credentials by extending shelf-life and therefore cutting wastage.

The highest-profile criticism came from Jon Stewart, the well-known presenter of the Daily Show, who slammed the individually wrapped bananas during a tirade at the start of his show on 7 March 2011. Mr Stewart even went as far as nominating the individually wrapped bananas for entry into the show’s honorary ‘Pantry of Shame’. He asked:

“What problem… what function does the bag serve that the peel does not currently serve? A product for people who love bananas but hate their biodegradability?”

But in an interview with James Epstein-Reeves of Forbes, Del Monte’s vice-president of marketing for North America, Dennis Christou, defended the move and explained why it made sense:

“Jon Stewart uses comedy to address important social issues and we applaud him for that. While his commentary about the Del Monte single wrapped bananas achieved its goal to raise awareness about the proliferation of packaging, it failed to note that the product serves another important role, namely the ability to now offer healthy alternative snacks to consumers in locations when they were previously not available due to the highly perishable nature of bananas.”

Read more of the interview with Dennis here.

Meanwhile, here’s a round-up of some of the other recent coverage:

It’s bananas! Fruit gets a second skin with Del Monte packaging — Daily Mail (UK)

Mother Nature may have thought she came up with the perfect packaging for the banana, but the man from Del Monte has other ideas.

Del Monte Gives Nature The Finger With Plastic-Bagged Bananas — Gizmodo (US)

If… if only there were some sort of container for a banana. Something that would protect the fruit inside, be easy to open and a cinch to throw away. Oh wait, right.

Luckily, the idiots at Del Monte have created an entirely unnecessary and wholly wasteful solution to a problem that doesn’t exist – packaging the perfectly fine organic wrapper of the banana’s skin with a plastic one – which now makes it, in moron marketing-speak, a “Natural Energy Snack on the Go”!

Del Monte bananas debut world’s least a-peel-ing packaging — Business Green (US)

As was foretold in the Book of Revelation, the End Times are fast-approaching, heralded by natural disaster, war, famine, and the kind of rampaging profligacy that gives you Del Monte’s plastic-wrapped single serve bananas.

Del Monte Adds Packaging to Single Bananas — Calorie Lab (US)

Some argue that the plastic wrap is wasteful, but Del Monte claims that the wrapper represents carbon footprint savings as it reduces frequency of deliveries.

Plastic Wrapping is Bananas — The Portland Mercury (US)

Have you seen this shit? Del Monte is now wrapping bananas in plastic. The plastic second-skin gives bananas a couple extra days before they rot and, conveniently, says a big “fuck you” to nature at the same time.

They’re doing WHAT to bananas? — CJAD (Canada)

The crazy thing about this is that the company is billing this as a green initiative.  You heard me.  A green initiative. The clear plastic pouches are supposed to control the ripening process and extend the shelf life of the fruit, leading to fewer rotten bananas in landfills. Individually wrapped bananas?  What’s next, individually wrapped grains of rice?

And finally some words in defence of the single-finger packs:

The No-Good, Very Bad, Overwrapped Banana — The Atlantic (US)

Yes, the banana has a plastic bag, but that’s only one small part of the energy and labor-intensive production that brings it into a northern climate in March. Commenting on the plastic bag around a banana is like being angry that a Hummer has leather seats or proud that Charlie Sheen is a vegetarian. You’re missing the main event and focusing on the details. Better that you teach your kids to eat root vegetables in the winter, or that you celebrate that urban moms can buy over-packaged fruit at a gas station instead of over-packaged candy.