Frits Popma, the managing director of Popma Fruit Expertise, told FreshPlaza that he greatest threat to the major banana brands are supermarket chains that are increasingly setting up their own import line and worries about the implications for research. “The A-brands”, he says, “invest heavily in developments, but also in battling panama disease and other threatening viruses. These studies cost millions, not something a small grower is likely to engage in.” He also notes that enticing growers to sell cheap in order to secure sales, sometimes results in shortages as growers cannot always guarantee supplies.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines the competition among banana exporters to bind by contract as many growers/suppliers as possible has encouraged the practice of ‘pole-vaulting’, the furtive trading of bananas outside of the usual grower-exporter contracts, writes Glenn C. Aquino in BusinessWorld online.