Despite the recent surge in inflation and despite decades of increasing costs and sustainability requirements for banana producers around the world, UK retail prices for bananas are still below the level seen in 1987.
This is the finding of Rabobank’s fresh produce expert Cindy Van Rijswick, who gathered data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics. Van Rijswick: “Actually, bananas are a victim of their own success. It is one of the most sold items in European supermarkets. Therefore, supermarkets believe they can attract shoppers with low-priced bananas. Also, in some countries, supermarket price levels are compared among supermarkets using a basket of products including bananas, so they do not like to be very expensive for the products in that basket.
On LinkedIN, Van Rijswick posted: "In the UK, retail prices for bananas are still below the 1987 level, despite the recent skyrocketing inflation and despite decades of increasing costs and requirements that the banana industry has to deal with!!"