Shipping Bananas Year-Round

How Bananas Grow

Over 1,000 varieties of bananas are grown worldwide. However, the most popular banana is the Cavendish. This variety became popular after the previous favorite, the Gros Michel, was almost wiped out by a soil fungus called Tropical Race 1 (TR1).

The Cavendish is a resilient fruit that has won over banana producers for a variety of reasons:

• Its short stem protects it from wind damage.
• It can recover quickly from natural disasters.
• It can be transported internationally without spoiling too fast.
• It’s resistant to TR1.

Banana plants can live up to 25 years if properly cared for, but they only produce fruit once in their lifetime. However, a single occurrence of fruit on the plant can yield up to 10 bunches, depending on the plant’s size, with each bunch holding up to 20 bananas. Plantations have hundreds of thousands of banana plants at each location, and each plant produces 200+ bananas annually, resulting in nearly 105 million tons of bananas overall.

Banana production remains steady with consistent heat and humidity. The United States has limited banana production due to scarce growing conditions, so commercial banana plantations are primarily located in tropical regions 30 degrees north and south of the equator. Major banana producers are countries along the equator, such as Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Packaging and Shipping Bananas

Shipping bananas from other countries presents various challenges. Bananas can’t be stuffed into a shipping container and left inside for weeks during travel. The fruit must be kept at a constant temperature. To be precise:

• The ideal climate for banana production is around 80°F (27°C), with annual rainfall between 78 and 98 inches.
• The region should have a constant humidity of at least 50%.
• Daily temperatures should range between 78-86ºF (26-30ºC); at night, they should not fall below 67ºF (20ºC).

This presents challenges for shipping bananas, as shippers must maintain a consistent temperature without exposing the fruit to heat, humidity, and other external factors.

To ship bananas in their healthiest form, they are harvested off the plant unripened. The fruit’s green color allows for a 3-4 week time frame before it fully ripens. Like avocados, bananas do not ripen while on the stalk. Following their removal from the stalk, the ripening cycle of the fruit begins. Harvesting the bananas at this stage will give them plenty of time to stay fresh as they reach their destination.

Bananas are shipped as whole hands, part hands, or clusters. Workers pack the bunches in cardboard cartons with plastic slip-sheets between full hands to protect the cargo. The cartons are then placed onto pallets for easy pickup and delivery. It is crucial to store bananas at or around 53°F (12°C) during shipping. If temperatures rise above the preferred range, bananas will rapidly ripen, leading to supermarkets receiving bananas with a shorter shelf life.