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    A single banana wrapped in plastic: Food that makes us sad

    By | Shine Food – Tue, Mar 29, 2011 9:32 PM EDT

    Del Monte's newest snack offering: Single bananas, warpped in plastic. (Photo/freshdelmonte.com)Del Monte's newest snack offering: Single bananas, wrapped in plastic. (Photo/freshdelmonte.com)Calling it "perfect for the convenience market," food manufacturing giant Fresh Del Monte has debuted its latest healthy snack: A single banana. Wrapped in plastic.

    Yes, it's still in the peel.

    No, it's not an April Fool's Day joke.

    Already-peeled grapefruit? Sure. Pre-cut apple slices in a sealed plastic bag? We understand, sort of. Baby carrots that are actually full-size carrots ground down into nubs? Fine, they save us the toil of peeling and chopping, we guess, so we'll look the other way about the waste.

    But a plastic-wrapped banana? Nature has already divided bananas into single-serve portions-and they already come in a protective wrapper that's easy to remove. As Jon Stewart pointed out on "The Daily Show": "What function does the bag serve that the peel does not currently serve?"

    (Our guess: It's a place to put logos and graphics? And a bigger price tag.)

    Though the brightly-colored bags aren't sturdy enough to protect the bananas from bruises and will probably end up in a landfill somewhere, Del Monte insists that all the extra plastic will actually reduce waste. According to Packaging International, the wrapper uses "controlled ripening technology," or CRT, which will extend the banana's shelf life by six days by controlling the rate at which the fruit ripens. A banana that lasts longer means fewer of them will spoil during shipping.

    "Del Monte's new CRT packaging is designed to provide significant carbon footprint savings by reducing the frequency of deliveries and the amount of waste going to landfill," James Harvey, Del Monte's United Kingdom Managing Director, spun in the article. "The packaging is also recyclable."

    No word on how creating all that extra packaging will affect the carbon footprint. Or why Del Monte representatives seem to think that overripe bananas aren't biodegradable (or perfect for banana bread) anymore.






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