December, 2008

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27
Dec 08

Stocking Stuffers, 2008

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When you’re the ‘banana guy’, you’re blessed with special cheer: Gifts like these.

Item one is a massive bar of soap – about the size of a mango – with this lovely banana branding. On opening, it turns out to be a Portuguese-made beauty bar marked “confianca”, or “confidence”.

No banana scent, but the word “banana” was brought to us in the15th century by Portuguese traders, who found the fruit being grown at a town near the mouth of the Congo river by the same name.

That guy is going to get hurt.
Second on the list: this silicon “banana handle,” designed as a compact potholder. Slip the peel onto the handle of a hot skillet, and you won’t get burned. I tried it last night on a pot of spaghetti sauce, and it worked!

Thanks to the Thompson family for the loot.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

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26
Dec 08

Convenience Store Banana Report: Fail!

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Spending the week in the great north country of New Hampshire and saw this sign adorning the entrance to a convenience store. No bananas of any kind inside, though. “We sold ‘em for 79 cents each, and you could buy a whole pound for that at the IGA down the street,” the clerk told me. It had been months since a Chiquita delivery.The competition from the Dunkin’ Donuts – same price at the same location – couldn’t have helped much.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Bananas — 1 Comment
18
Dec 08

Photo of the Week

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Finally back from Africa. Amazing bananas, amazing stories and photos. Exhausted. No blog entries, of course – but you’ll see tons over the next few weeks. In the meantime, thanks to my buddy Rich Snodsmith – also a shirt of the month contributor – here’s Trader Joe’s holding banana prices down. Bravo – especially considering that wholesale banana prices have more than doubled in that five-year period! Can anyone say “loss leader?”

But wait – is that nineteen-cent banana really a bargain? Most other stores sell fruit by the pound. Generally, a supermarket fruit weighs a bit more than six ounces – you get about two and a half bananas per pound (sure, sometimes they’re smaller, but I’m assuming bigger because at TJ’s, you get to choose.) What about banana prices? These days, you’re lucky to pay 59 cents for a pound of the fruit in most cities. Sixty-nine cents seems to be the average, and a dime more isn’t unheard

Here’s the math:

  • At 59 cents for a pound, a single banana costs about 24 cents.
  • Add ten cents to the bulk price, and you pay a bit less than 28 cents per fruit.
  • Another dime at the scale, and a single banana sets you back almost 32 cents.

What about organics? They usually run about 99 cents a pound – yielding a whopping forty cents per banana.

The Trader Joe banana turns out to be the real deal – coming in at less than 50 cents per pound. They’re probably the cheapest bananas in America.

Thanks, Rich!

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2
Dec 08

Dole, Others Sued in U.S for Ecuador Pesticides

This exclusive report copyright 2008 www.bananabook.org.

Two of the world’s biggest banana companies, the American chemical companies who supply them, along with several other companies they do business with, are being sued by pilots, ground crew, and residents of the Ecuadorian plantation town of Puerto Viejo for health damage they allegedly suffered during years of spraying of Mancozeb, a fungicide used to combat Black Sigatoka, the most common and costly disease affecting commercial bananas.

The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) on September 18, 2008. It names Dole, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical and Noboa – which markets bananas in the U.S. under the “Bonita” brand name – as primary defendants, and accuses them of using the chemical despite knowing that it would cause birth defects, cancer, and respiratory and fertility problems among banana workers and their families.

Mancozeb is listed by the Pesticde Action Network as having “toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.” Mancozeb is a fairly common garden fungicide, and the U.S. EPA regards it as safe, but only in small quantities and with proper protective gear and usage. The suit alleges all were lacking.

The suit is one of several that banana companies are facing and have faced in U.S. courts for their actions overseas. Last year, Dole received a mixed verdict in a similar pesticide suit involving Nicaraguan workers, with some receiving damages, and some charges being dismissed. Chiquita is currently being sued by families who allege that payments the company made to Colombian terrorist groups directly funded activities that led to the deaths of their loved ones.