# Why are bananas so cheap? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801 "2010-02-13T01:44:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DtypeJag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@DtypeJag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DtypeJag)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/81 "2016-05-17T20:12:45Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > You think bananas make you cynical? Consider the pineapple! Dirt cheap fresh or in cans, and every damned thing you do to a pineapple you do by hand. Planting, harvesting, everything. A pineapple plant produces ONE pineapple and it takes it FOREVER to do it. (Some will then produce another after harvesting, but not every variety.) You harvest them in protective clothing because everything about the pineapple is spiny as hell. And I can buy a can of pineapple for practically nothing. Last time I was in Hawaii the pineapple was higher than in California. They only grow in Hawaii, right, at least for the American market? Lobsters in Maine were more expensive than in Kansas, as were California abalone. Is this a free market? Or is the Mafia somehow in on it? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/82 "2016-05-18T00:49:56Z")
[A beautiful bunch o’ ripe banana _Daylight come and me wan go home_ Hide the deadly black taranch’la _Daylight come and me wan go home_](https://youtu.be/PMigXnXMhQ4) As they always say, “somebody had to do it.” ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/83 "2017-05-17T02:47:33Z")
TThis one pops up from time to time – the scare, that is. [Spiders in your bananas](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dangerous-spiders-grocery-produce/) I worked handling produce for several years and I never saw a big scary spider in any fruit container. Maybe by the time it gets to Massachusetts, a tropical spider isn’t going to be hanging around anymore. It’s one of those things that CAN happen in a temperate zone, but not bloody likely. You’re more likely to get run over by a delivery van in the parking lot. :smack: Also bananas go through ethelyne gassing processes. I don’t know if big scary spiders are partial to those. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/84 "2017-05-17T03:34:45Z")
Container ships are amazingly cost effective to the point where transport of bulk goods is basically free (not really but you are looking at cents for something like a bunch of bananas). How do supermarkets make money on them? They generally don’t. I used to work in the supermarket industry and bananas are just one of those things you are expected to have on hand. If you include labor, they generally lose money on them but they hope to break even. I freely admit that I don’t know how the entire supply chain exists except that bananas are typically grown in places like Central America where average household income is only a few hundred dollars a month at the most and bananas grow like crazy. All it takes is a few cents a bunch to support an average worker. There is also the clandestine part of the operation. This is one of the few true conspiracy theories. The CIA supported banana operations in Central America through the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Banana) to overthrow governments in Central and South America from the 1930’s onward. It was very real. My undergraduate university even had whole buildings dedicated from that cause. If you don’t believe me, Google CIA United Fruit Company. I have no idea if the whole industry is still corrupt today but it may be. Maybe the whole industry is inadvertently subsidized and they don’t care much about the bananas at all. The most likely answer that bananas are very easy to grow, cheap to ship and no one expects to make money on them. ---
**Author:** ![Kelevra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/97f17d/32.png) [@Kelevra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelevra)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/85 "2017-05-17T15:56:18Z")
My family used to own (and I used to work at) a company that made banana ripening rooms. One of the Chiquita executives I talked to said they made most of their money shipping goods back to Central America. Chiquita owns the ships. Sorry, no cite, just a conversation I had years ago. The volume of banana consumption in the US is enormous. In Cincinnati we built about half of the ripening rooms used by the produce distributors. That was 38 rooms. Each room holds one semi load of bananas (40,000 lbs). Each room could ripen a load in 5 days. And that was in one small city. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/86 "2017-05-17T17:02:13Z")
> [@tofergregg](#): > > Volume! WAG, but they ship a bunch of bananas, probably using their own ships, or contracted ones that are relatively inexpensive, and there is a lot of supply available. I have mine delivered by Great Eagle; a loss of 999 out of a 1000 due to snacking is a small price to pay. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/87 "2017-05-17T17:20:52Z")
Does it grip it by the husk? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/88 "2017-05-17T17:26:09Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Another factor is that, since the early 1900’s, American fruit companies have been pissing all over the developing world. United Fruit Company clear-cut enormous amounts of land to develop plantations, left much of it unused to keep small, independent farmers from getting into the banana trade, did everything they could to keep governments from improving transportation within the country so that UFC could maintain their monopoly on local railroads, and pretty much treated the farmers working for them as slaves. It set up a nice precedent for your cheap bananas. > > When you think of bananas, you think of Chiquita, right? Part of their success comes from [paying off local terrorist groups](http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html) in Colombia. When you have the crazy, heavily armed guys who have no hesitation about murdering civilians on your side, things get a lot cheaper and easier. > > There are many credible allegations against both Chiquita and Dole claiming human rights violations. There’s no question that they pay their workers next to nothing and expose them to incredible amounts of pesticides - bananas are one of the most pesticide-heavy crops (and the overall effect on the local environment tends to be disastrous). I am no food faddist, but after seeing a video of what happens in these plantations, I would never buy one that wasn’t Fair Trade. As far as ripening on the tree is concerned, I grew up in Sierra Leone, where bananas grow, but not commercially. We had a load of them as a border round our garden. There were two kinds; one, the little red ones that were absolutely delicious, but had a short season and didn’t keep well. The others were much bigger (plantains?) and were usually cooked rather than eaten raw. The natives let them go black before they would eat them. The poster who said they are a herb was right, and they are really a berry too. If you want to try a cooked one, do it on the barbeque: Slice the banana along one side and insert a chocolate flake. Wrap it in foil and while the party eat their steaks etc, leave the foil-wrapped bananas on the hot embers. They are done when slightly squishy and you just open them up and eat with a spoon. Squirty cream is very popular on them. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/89 "2017-05-17T17:41:56Z")
Just thought I would throw in that bananas are Walmart’s top selling item. They sold 1.6 billion pounds in 2016. I assume that is ranked by weight, not value, although the articles don’t state it. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/90 "2017-05-17T20:47:12Z")
Zombie bananas are almost always overripe, brown, and missing a portion of their peel. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/91 "2017-05-17T21:43:01Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > I have read (sorry, can’t remember where) that the ubiquitous Cavendish variety was developed to replace a previous popular variety, which was suddenly wiped out by disease. Yes, the Cavendish replaced the Gros Michel. In the 1950s, Panama disease devastated a large number of Gros Michel plantations so they switched to Cavendish. The Cavendish in turn is now being threatened by a new strain of Panama disease and will probably cease to be a major crop in a few years. Hopefully it will be replaced by something else but some people are saying banana growers are not taking the threat seriously enough. ---
**Author:** ![Ornery\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/da6949/32.png) [@Ornery\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ornery_Bob)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/92 "2017-05-17T23:20:31Z")
Shipping costs of full containers is much less than you would imagine. You can book a 40K lbs container from Los Angeles to Costa Rica for about $2K off a web page on the internet. I suspect banana producers are paying significantly less. I wouldn’t be surprised if shipping costs were in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 cents a pound _delivered_ to the market’s distribution center. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/93 "2017-05-18T02:29:01Z")
> [@Kelevra](#): > > Each room holds one semi load of bananas (40,000 lbs). Are you saying Harry Chapin lied to me about the [weight of a truckload of bananas?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30,000_Pounds_of_Bananas) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/94 "2017-05-18T02:47:09Z")
Because there’s always money in the banana stand. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/95 "2017-05-19T21:23:14Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > But that’s not to say we don’t get stuck with over ripe bananas from time to time, when that happens we sell them even cheaper, usually 10 pounds for a dollar. Those get pulled from sale in the produce department, and moved to the in-store bakery – where they have a sale on banana bread the next day. ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/96 "2017-05-20T02:51:59Z")
> [@Ornery\_Bob](#): > > Shipping costs of full containers is much less than you would imagine. You can book a 40K lbs container from Los Angeles to Costa Rica for about $2K off a web page on the internet. I suspect banana producers are paying significantly less. I wouldn’t be surprised if shipping costs were in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 cents a pound _delivered_ to the market’s distribution center. I was a longshoreman during the 1990s and worked a few shifts as a forklift driver unloading banana boats at the port of LA/LB. They arrive on refrigerated ships on pallets, not in containers. We forked them directly into a HUGH refrigerated warehouse. It went very fast, and even though we were well paid, the labor costs were something like fractions of a cent a pound. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/97 "2017-05-20T04:13:12Z")
Not to mention the giant spiders the diameter of an extra-large anchovie pizza with ricin dripping fangs lurking within your banana bunch, ready to pounce on your face and bite you when you reach for a banana to slice into your bowl of Kellogg’s Cornflakes tomorrow morning. …don’t worry about it! There’s only a 50/50 chance of that happening to you. Sleep tight. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/98 "2017-05-20T11:19:35Z")
The simple truth is that shipping stuff, in the literal sense of carrying it on a ship across the oceans, is darn cheap. That’s because of the economies of scale involved: Modern cargo vessels can carry upteen thousands of tons of payload. Tat drives down the per-pound price of the cargo carried. In many cases, hauling goods across the ocean for thousands of miles is cheaper, per pound of cargo, than trucking it just a few hundred miles on land from the port to its inland destination. A truck can carry one of two containers, a cargo ship thousands of them. As we’ve said [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=453772). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/99 "2017-05-20T14:45:16Z")
There are lots of other bananas apart from the ubiquitous Cavendish. These are a few. > [@](#): > > Creamily sweet Reds: Red bananas are short, soft, and sweet, with a hint > of raspberry flavor. > > Intensely sweet Babies: `They may be small, but they pack a lot of natural > sweetness under their thin, bright skins. > > Delicately Apple Manzanos (“apple banana”): The best way to enjoy > them is when their thin skin is almost black – eat them straight from the skin > as a snack or cooked in desserts. > > Fabulously Fruity Prata: Are Brazil’s favourite banana. They are amazing > and best eaten when brown and even a little scruffy looking! > > [http://www.fyffes.com/resource-centre/download/2\_-\_Banana\_Varieties.pdf](http://www.fyffes.com/resource-centre/download/2_-_Banana_Varieties.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801/100 "2017-05-20T14:47:54Z")
> [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](#): > > > [@Ornery\_Bob](#): > > > > Shipping costs of full containers is much less than you would imagine. You can book a 40K lbs container from Los Angeles to Costa Rica for about $2K off a web page on the internet. I suspect banana producers are paying significantly less. I wouldn’t be surprised if shipping costs were in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 cents a pound _delivered_ to the market’s distribution center. > > I was a longshoreman during the 1990s and worked a few shifts as a forklift driver unloading banana boats at the port of LA/LB. They arrive on refrigerated ships on pallets, not in containers. We forked them directly into a HUGH refrigerated warehouse. It went very fast, and even though we were well paid, the labor costs were something like fractions of a cent a pound. I very much doubt that’s still the case. The entire shipping industry is designed around containers (which may, of course, contain palletized loads). [Here](http://www.chiquita.com/blog/corporate-news/chiquita-launches-new-california-banana-shipping-service), for instance, is a page from Chiquita’s website with a photo of one of their container ships used for transporting bananas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bananas-so-cheap/528801.md?page=6)