Nearly everyone consumes bananas and that makes the fruit a powerhouse category for supermarkets.
In 2019, IRI reported that retail banana sales totaled $3.05 billion, down 1.4% compared with 2018.
Bananas sold at retail in 2019 totaled 5.58 billion pounds, according to IRI, down 0.9% compared with 2018. IRI reported the price per pound was 55 cents per pound in 2019, unchanged from 2018.
Although the overall banana category is stable, Craig Carlson, CEO of Carlson Produce Consulting, said there is growth in the organic category.
Retail organic banana sales in 2019 totaled $315.85 million, up 7.8% from 2018. By volume, organic banana sales topped 442.8 million pounds in 2019, up 7.6% compared with 2018. The average price per pound for organic bananas was 71 cents per pound in 2019, unchanged from 2018.
The value of U.S. organic banana imports has increased from $176 million in 2015 to $302.9 million in 2020 (August 2019 to July 2020), according to U.S. Department of Agriculture trade statistics.
The top organic banana supplier to the U.S. is Ecuador, which accounted for 41% by value of total U.S. organic banana imports in 2020, compared with 23% for Mexico, 16% for Columbia and 15% for Peru.
Retail strategy
Retailers tend to separate organic bananas from conventional fruit, Carlson said, and some retailers ask for purple stickers on organic fruit to help cashiers ring up the organic fruit correctly.
Ideally, he said retailers would like to have scannable GTIN labels on bananas to take human error out of the equation at checkout.
Banana marketing companies can differentiate beyond organic with a Fair Trade Certified label or variations on the social/environmental theme.
Women and older consumers are more frequent banana consumers, according to The Packer’s Fresh Trends 2020 consumer survey.
For consumers 50-59, 72% said they purchased bananas in the past year. That compares with 48% for those 18-39 and 52% of those 40-49. Seventy percent of consumers over 59 said they purchased bananas, according to Fresh Trends.
Sixty-three percent of women surveyed said they purchased bananas in the past year, compared to 54% of men. Fifty-two percent of households with kids said they purchased bananas in the past year, compared with 63% of households with no kids.
Related Content:
Smurfit Kappa offers BanaBag for banana producers
Chiquita supports Breast Cancer Awareness Month with stickers
