The Guardian recently investigated an oft asked question about fruit prices in UK supermarkets: Why are homegrown apples in the UK more expensive than imported bananas?
The Guardian quoted “figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, since 2000, the price of a kilo of dessert apples has been consistently higher than the price of a kilo of bananas. The data, which ends in January 2025, shows that, at that point, the average price of a kilo of dessert apples was £2.14, while the same weight of bananas cost £1.02. Figures from the UK government show that the average wholesale price of homegrown apples was £1.23 a kilo on 20 January last year, while the wholesale price of bananas was 98p. The difference in markup is clearly much higher with apples, but the shop prices include imported fruit, as well as UK-grown varieties.”
Also quoted was “data from Worldpanel by Numerator, an organisation that gathers and tracks shop prices, shows that the average cost of packaged apples at UK supermarkets has risen by 17% since 2021. Meanwhile, the average price of a pack of bananas has increased by 6%.”
In recognition that bananas are retailers’ top-selling fresh product in many parts of the world, Banana Link International Coordinator, Alistair Smith, was quoted by the Guardian as saying, “nine households out of 10 buy them, so [retailers] fight very hard to keep the prices down”. Sometimes, bananas have been used as loss leaders, being sold below cost, as a way to win custom.”
Smith additionally saying, “bananas are “undervalued, underpriced” and that, in the UK, where they are now about £1 a kilo typically, if they were priced to make sure everyone in the production chain got what they should, they would be £1.50. Fairtrade has helped tens of thousands of workers to get a living wage, but producers and workers outside that system are still losing out as the price we pay is not enough.”
“The sustainability of the industry rests on a revaluing. It doesn’t make sense that something that has come 5,000 miles is cheaper than an apple that’s come from 10 or even 100 miles away,”
Putting value back into this most labour-intensive of tropical crops
Following publication of the Guardian article, Alistair Smith made the following statement”
“When a fruit on a supermarket shelf that has come thousands of miles in expensive maritime transport is regularly sold at half the price of apples that have not come far, there is a problem with the economics. The economists refer to “externalities”, meaning the costs incurred to society or the natural environment but not counted in the price.
Bananas’ history as a cheap fast food goes back to the beginnings of globalisation in the 19th century. It was the companies responsible for launching the banana trade that pitched the fruit that way. Now they realise that this history is not helping a sustainable future for the world’s favourite fruit.
All the players, but especially the big retailers who are the gatekeepers to consumers in more and more countries, need to find ways of putting value back into this most labour-intensive of tropical crops. Otherwise, it is likely that nobody will want to work in a plantation if they have a choice. It is also likely that small farmers, saved for the time being by the Fairtrade model, will simply disappear from the global banana trade map, as they did in the Windward Islands and as they are doing in the Dominican Republic today.
Photo: Joshua Colah on Unsplash
