To be called “yellow” is an insult — unless you're a banana. Perhaps nothing does a better job of luring shoppers into the produce department than a bright yellow banana.
But nothing's perfect, and even this top-selling fruit can be a challenge to move when the window of opportunity closes and it starts to freckle. Those unattractive, brown sugar spots are anything but sweet when they start to turn off customers and infringe on sales.
If only there were a way to help bananas maintain their alluring bright yellow color longer.
Now there is, says Kevin Frye with Philadelphia-based AgroFresh. The company makes products, such as SmartFresh and RipeLock, which provide post-harvest freshness protection technology for various kinds of produce. RipeLock, a technology specific to bananas, extends the shelf life and the preferred yellow color by inhibiting the interaction of ethylene with the fruit.
Frye, RipeLock North American sales manager, says the system is a tool that can deliver bananas “with greater consumer appeal and provide a broader window of freshness.”
“At the same time, shrink and markdowns can be reduced, facilitating sales and inventory management,” he says.
The process
RipeLock is a two-part system, Frye explains. First, bananas are packed at their source, typically Central American, Caribbean, South American or African countries, and placed in boxes lined with specially designed RipeLock modified-atmosphere bags. Then they follow the normal shipping process until they arrive at a ripening room at their destination.
“At the very end of the ripening process, the RipeLock application happens,” Frye says.
“It allows the plant to not recognize the ethylene, so it doesn't age as quickly.”
Only applied in the ripening room, the RipeLock active ingredient is non-toxic, contains no genetically modified organisms, is not released into the environment and does not come into contact with humans, he says.
In the meantime, the bag maintains a perfect atmosphere for the bananas, including humidity, oxygen “and everything needed to stay healthy but not mature too quickly.”
One of the advantages of the system is it fits perfectly into the existing banana delivery process, he says.“There are no added steps,” Frye says. “Retailers and ripeners are not changing their banana program — they're enhancing it.” It works for retailers who ripen their own product as well as those who rely on a third party to complete the ripening process.
Yellow = $ green $
The system helps maintain the quality, color, texture and flavor of bananas, and Frye says research has shown bright yellow bananas encourage sales. A study by MMR Research Worldwide in the UK showed nearly 70% of consumers preferred RipeLock bananas to current in-market bananas, and 81% of shoppers said they were likely to buy
RipeLock bananas compared to 57% for traditional bananas.
Longer shelf life gives retailers the ability to have consistent, high-quality fruit on display longer with less frequent restocking and without extra deliveries, Frye says. He estimates the system can help maintain bananas at an ideal color — stage 5 or 6 — for several days longer than traditional handling.
And RipeLock reduces the need to “air stack” boxes in most back-room environments, he says.