Tapping into South America
The bananas are sourced from Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. “Right now we have plenty of bananas. We kind of created a name for ourselves as banana guys so we’ve got people reaching out to us to supply bananas as well as buying bananas,” says Suplicy. “The banana industry is huge and there are a lot of rejected bananas so I’m not finding any problem getting bananas right now.” Bananas that Barnana use, for example, may be ones with a tinge of yellow under its green growth. “So they’re still green bananas but they’re not green enough because the shelf life of a banana is so short, if they’re not green, they don’t qualify,” Suplicy notes. “So we help reduce food waste by buying those bananas that don’t qualify to be exported as fresh produce.”
A bump in bananas
For 2017, Barnana expects to go through an anticipated 2 million kilos of bananas—a big jump from five years ago when they started with 100,000 kilos in 2012. “The prices of bananas vary widely. Usually at the end of the year, they’re a little higher but not by much,” he says. “The great thing is bananas are produced year round. The only thing that may affect the production is the amount of water. If it’s a dry season, you may have a smaller yield of bananas but this year has been pretty good. We had a problem with that a few years ago.”
For now though, growth is also leading to product development—Barnana plans to introduce a crunchy banana product this March.
For more information:
Caue Suplilcy
Barnana
Tel: +1 858-480-1543
info@barnana.com
https://barnana.com