Starting in September, PENNY will begin marketing pineapples without crowns throughout Germany. The pineapple crowns will be removed during harvesting. This has many advantages: The crown accounts for approximately 25 per cent of the fruit's volume, so increasing packaging and transport efficiency will reduce the carbon footprint. In addition, the crowns can be reused in the country of origin: around 20 per cent are used to grow new pineapples, and the remaining 80 per cent are used as fertilizer. Until now, pineapple crowns have ended up more or less unused in customers' household waste. Pineapples without crowns will be available in all 2,130 PENNY stores throughout the year.
"We sell around 2.5 million pineapples every year. By removing the crowns, we are only changing the familiar appearance. Extensive testing has clearly shown that the quality and shelf life of the fruit remain unchanged. We are also helping to make sustainable use of the previously useless part of the pineapple, the crown, in the growing regions. Another advantage is that we can now transport more fruit in the same space by sea. Ultimately, this makes transport easier for our customers and reduces the amount of waste in domestic trash cans. In this respect, everyone in the chain benefits from the change. Less is more in this case," says Patricia Hirsch, Head of Purchasing for Fruit, Vegetables, and Flowers at PENNY.
Source: Penny
