A Company Has Developed a Banana That Doesn’t Go Brown
The innovations will buy you time with your grocery store haul – and have potential to reduce food waste and CO2 emissions.
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For most of us, the best way to avoid wasting bananas once they tip over from ripe to overripe — from yellow and firm(ish) to soft, spotted and brown — is to make banana bread. But a U.K.-based company is working on a new solution to the brown-banana issue: It’s developing a “non-browning banana.”
The agricultural-biotechnology firm, Tropic, is using CRISPR gene-editing techniques to target and disable the gene responsible for the enzyme that causes bananas to brown, creating a banana that stays fresh and yellow after it has been peeled. Browning is about oxidation and doesn’t affect sweetness; it is not the same as ripening. Tropic is also working on a banana with a longer shelf life.
If all goes to plan, Tropic’s non-browning bananas and extended-shelf-life bananas will both be available by the end of 2025.
In addition to being a boon for individual consumers looking for longer-lasting, lunchbox-worthy fruit, the non-browning bananas may expand the market for cut fruit and fruit exports and reduce food waste and shipping costs.
“Tropic’s non-browning bananas have the potential to significantly reduce food waste and CO2 emissions along the supply chain by more than 25%, as over 60% of exported bananas go to waste before reaching the consumer,” Tropic says in a press release. “This innovative product can support a reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to removing 2 million passenger vehicles from the road each year.”
Tropic, which is also developing a fungal-disease-resistant banana, has, to date, racked up regulatory approvals for the non-browning bananas in the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Colombia and Honduras, with more areas expected to follow.
Tropic cofounder Gilad Gershon told AgFunderNews that the company spent several years developing the non-browning banana and began producing seedlings about one year ago.
“We’re now starting to offer significant quantities of these banana plants to farmers,” Gershon told the food and ag site. “The bananas have the same taste, smell, sweetness profile, the same everything, except that the flesh doesn’t go brown as quickly, which means you can add them to fruit salads and cut fruit products, opening up a huge new market.”
In other words, banana bread’s loss is fruit salad’s gain.
The 43 Best Banana Recipes for Using Up Your Bunch 43 Photos
With a few ripe bananas on hand, a comforting treat is never far away. See for yourself with these easy recipes for banana bread, pudding, ice cream and more.
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