So far this year, up until the middle of this month (week 33), the production of Canary bananas (Plátano de Canarias) has reached an all-time record, with a total of 282 million kilos, which represents an increase of 8 million compared to the previous peak in production, reached in the same period of 2010.
A record has also been achieved in terms of marketing, with more than 270 million kilograms sold in that period, of which 247 million were shipped to the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. This is 23 million kilos more than in 2015 and 27 million above the average of the past six years.
The president of the Association of Banana Producer Organisations of the Canary Islands (ASPROCAN), Henry Sicilia, stressed that this development, which has been the result of both favourable weather conditions and the improvement of the crops, is taking place in a very negative scenario for fruit sales in Spain. Here the total volume of fruit consumed in households has dropped by 10% over the last three years. This has led the brand Plátano de Canarias to intensify its efforts this year in order to counter all the negative circumstances playing against them and to achieve the highest ever sales volume figures.
To this we must also add the difficulties caused by the gap between Canary bananas and those from other origins as regards consumer prices. During the first seven months of the year, the average consumer price of Canary bananas stood at 1.73 Euro per kilo, compared with the 1.23 Euros for bananas originating elsewhere.
When it comes to prices, Henry Sicilia explained that the unit price for bananas in the green market have fallen to levels which are making it difficult to sustain their activity - if they don't recover in the medium term. However, it is worth recalling that, since early this year, the sector has also managed to increase its sales volume by more than 700,000 kilos per week, reaching an average of 8.18 million kilos per week, and thus managing to ensure the commercial viability of the production.
In this process, the promotional activities organised by the producer organisations and Plátano de Canarias have played a key role, as they have succeeded in boosting the specific demand for Canary bananas and the fruit's overall consumption levels in Spanish homes.
Proof of this is that the cumulative market share for Canary bananas in the Peninsula and the Balearic reached 75.6% last June, well above any other consumer product, as confirmed by the monitoring of Kantar Worldpanel, which was assigned this task by the Council of Agriculture, Food and Environment. In turn, this quota has been reached in a market with prices at a similar level to last year's.
Crisis management
Henry Sicilia claims that, in this scenario, and as a final resource against the inability to sell 100% of the production, the production sector, unfortunately, has felt the need to resort to the crisis management mechanism for agricultural markets, set up and regulated by the EU, to enable them to withdraw some of the production from the market.
Thus, in the first half of the year, a total of 3.2 million kilos have been allocated to food banks across the country, another 4.4 million kilos have gone to feeding livestock on the islands and 900,000 kilograms have been used to manufacture compost.
For its part, Plátano de Canarias is working to address this situation by devoting financial and professional resources to capture new markets, and it is also increasing investment to continue promoting the product among consumers of the Peninsula.
Moreover, the sector is working, together with the Government of the Canary Islands, in the current process of amending the rules governing banana producer organisations in order to strengthen their competitiveness in the medium and long term.
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