|
Marketing bananas in the US
There are about 400 acres of commercial bananas in Dade County Florida and apparently those bananas never leave the county. I've been considering planting an acre or two and honestly have been trying to wrap my head around selling that many bananas! I never see anything other than chiquita, dole, or del monte in the grocery stores but there must be someone selling off those 400 acres that I just have not come across. Does anyone have any clue about the volume of bananas that moves through a typical grocery store in a week? I saw on that Ecuador site that a box of bananas was a little less than $5, but when I check the AMS for the port of Miami a box is $14. What is the real price point, the grocer sells them for $27 a box.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The real price point will be deterined by a number of factors, none of them in your control except the volume you sell and the price you will accept. Other factors are:
1) Demand for 'other' bananas' 2) Retailer's familiararity with the product 3) Shelf space 4) Substitutes available 5) others that may come up The agreement needs to be reached prior to delivery. The volume you have may be more or less than you can provide.... Will you have problems with wholesalers? It goes on and on..... Good luck. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I talked to someone I know that owns a vegetable packinghouse and he seemed to think that Publix (a major southeastern grocer) would be somewhat interested because they preferentially buy Florida grown produce. Of course they need some volume, but they don't need volume all year long.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
My experience has been that the best places to sell tropical fruit (including bananas) are large scale Asian grocery stores. We sell fruit (Carambolas, bananas, Pommelos, etc.,) by the pound. After you build a relationship they will take all we can bring (this is a very large local grocer).
They always request unusual bananas..... Good luck! Couple acres...very exciting!!:woohoonaner: |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The closest asian place to me is probably a good 30 miles away, however we do have several Latin grocery stores in the region, I may look in that direction.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Don't forget farmers markets. If you're a market grower anyway, it's easy enough to bring along something else to your stand.
Do you have any wholesale produce auctions? They're a good way to get your feet wet without a lot of commitment on your part. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I am pretty sure that most of the bananas grown in Dade county are Thai (Nam Wah). I am planting a field right now and can tell you that the demand is high. The packing house was paying $26 to $27 per 30 lb box as of a few weeks ago. Of course the price fluctuates. The retailer sells them for a bit over $ 2.00 per lb. Right now your biggest hurdle would be finding clean planting material. You could go to Agri-Starts but will have to wait more time for your plants to start producing.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Which packing house are you going through.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Double Green Farm Inc. in Florida City.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Muchas gracias
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
You could make a fortune out here in California with the many ethnic grocery stores craving rare bananas.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I'm really surprised that someone isn't growing bananas out in the imperial valley
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Bananas here in the desert a quite a different thing than in the tropics. We get frosts most years, and the 115 in the summer is also a detriment. The Israelis grow lots of bananas, mostly clones of gran nain. So variety selection will take some time and effort. I think I will play with some...
But the other big factor is knowledge of bananas. I can quite assure you that there is no one in this area with much experience in bananas. Most growers here in the desert are larger operators who have a bunch (ha ha) of ground and playing with a few acres of bananas is not in the cards. And of course the economics are tough. Even Richard Ha, who up until this past summer was the largest grower in the US, with about 600 ac on the Big Island in Hawaii has given up on bananas because of the high costs involved. The speciality markets are the only way to go, and they are not infinite in their ability to take fruit... In Israel they crank out 20 tons plus per acre, Central America pumps out a couple thousand cases per ha on poor fields... that is a lot of fruit to put into specialty markets... Especially here in the desert when we really have a 6 month harvest season. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I'm giving bananas a try commercially right now. I'm basically sharecropping about 5 acres on some really good land that has some temperature moderation due to it's proximity to a large body of water. This whole thrust of buying local has increased demand for everything local, and a premium is there.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Absolutely! and that is where banana production will have to come from here in the desert... the grower who does 3000 acres of lettuce is not likely to horse around with bananas... it is a whole different mentality, equipment set, and wholly different group of cultural practices.
GOOD LUCK!!! Grow the varieties the locals want. s |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The guy I am sharecropping from has about 7k acres, so five acres is a drop in the bucket for him. But you figure there are about 7.5 million people within a two hour drive from me, someone will want some bananas. It's a lot of work though, every day after work I got something to do out there.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
about 2 ha, or a couple thousand mats or so.
In central america they figure that each Ha will average 60 racemes per week, so I have no doubt you are busy, busy. All that bagging, color coding, weed control, fertilizing, pruning, suckering... bananas on that scale are a huge amount of work for one guy... I hope you have help! |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Well, Florida is a little different I suppose in planting populations. I have read that when they plant in central america they are planting about 1700 plants per hectare. In Florida, the recommendation I received was to only plant about 1000 plants per hectare. Also, we don not bag our bananas. I would say growing bananas in Florida is a little less labor intensive than in central America since production almost ceases between January and April and the fact that the specialty varieties that we use don't have as many issues as cavendish bananas do. The biggest problem I've had lately is that I am out there between 5 and 8PM and the mosquitoes try to carry me off. They don't seem to be phased by DEET.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The 1000 mats per ha seems about right, which is why I noted that with 5 acs you are looking at a couple thousand mats...
Not baging the fruit? Why is that? Bagging provides 2 primary advantages--first, it brings the fruit on quicker, perhaps a week or so... which over the course of lots of mats means lots more fruit per ac per year. Second is the quality... you will get MUCH nicer, cleaner fruit with bags. The bags protect them from wind, rain, dust, bugs, sunburn. Your cullage will be much less, you will have a much higher % of marketable fruit. When you see in the literature that up to 40% of the fruit in places is culled, you can bet that they were un-bagged. In the intensive banana producing areas of the world, if a bag comes off, they just cut down he plant and wait for the follower as it is not worth harvesting. I highly recommend that you experiment with bags. In Hawaii, they use both a fine mesh reusable bag, and also the poly bag with small air holes punched in it common in Central America. Medjool date growers also use the fine mesh bags. And that is where the color coding comes in. You may know this, but for those who don't, growers use flagging ribbon at bagging to note which week the raceme was bagged. Most have a 10 color rotation, some use multiple colors tied together if they can't find enough colors (red over blue, blue over red, solid red, solid blue makes 4 weeks with 2 colors). Harvest is then simplified by only having to look for the 25 or so racemes with that color each week of harvest in each acre. Don't fool yourself to think that specialty bananas are less intensive!!! Proper Husbandry is critical for success in all flavors... the weeds have to be kept down, the daughter plants selected, dead leaves pruned, the flowers cut off and the non productive hands removed from each raceme, fertilizer applied for max production, pest scouting. Holes in the plantings need to be re-populated, pathways to get the fruit out of the field maintained... boggy areas filled so you can get though them when it is wet, drainage ditches cut so the low areas don't drown. All of these things will be issues at some point, and many more I have not mentioned. And this does not even begin to cover the upkeep on packing needs... tank maintainence, getting the alum ratios right, clean cutting areas, box storage, etc etc etc ad nauseum... If you are doing it organic, then even more so as Organic production takes much better managment, and you must be way in front of the curve on pest management--which includes weeds as well as bugs and diseases. as for the mosquitos... part of the package!! Again, best wishes! Steve West |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The tagging is something I definitely intend on doing, just to make it much easier to deal with harvesting. Bagging is a whole different issue. The market for specialty bananas(caribbean hispanics) don't seem to be very obsessed with how things look on the outside. I've seen the bags in Latin America, but not here in Florida.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I grow mine organically on about a quarter acre, spacing them at 10-12 feet. On the curb next to where they grow, they fetch $1.00 per pound green for the entire bunch. I'm new at this and would appreciate any input that would enhance my production, and grow my bottom line. I also sell the AgriStarts TC plants for $15 each or 2/$25 at about three months old. In Pahokee the banana growing should be quite rewarding as your soil conditions are naturally optimal. To improve our Miami-Dade county skinny (0 to 10 inches) soil covering the limestone formation, I use coffee grounds, buried fish heads, worm castings, green manure, and compost to supplement the soil along with mulch and fresh horse stable sweeps. I also use K-Mag a.k.a. SulPoMag. Where can one get the bags suggested and at what point are they tied over the green fruit?
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
The closest location to Miami that I have seen the bags is in Puerto Rico. I've seen pictures of other subtropical growing locations like the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Madeira and I don't see any bags there. The only bags I saw in all of Puerto Rico were on a plantation where the Bananas were destined for the cruise ships leaving San Juan. And your assumptions about the very rich soil up here are well founded. I had about 0.25 acres of Dwarf Cavendish at my house when I moved in, never gave them much thought as far as watering or fertilizing and they would produce 90 lbs bunches reliably. I got sigatoka really bad last year and had to really focus on sanitation and spraying to get rid of that disease. So far this year, the plants have all looked really good.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Nicolas how are you combating the Sigatoka and what are you doing to improve sanitation? There are several large plots of bananas along US 27 down here south of Kendall Drive that are now beginning to look fairly well grown...I noticed that they recently have had horse manure mounded up around them and am wondering why the grower applied it so late in the growing cycle. The last time I was in your area I was collecting chicken manure from the Ag center in Belle Glade. I often pass through the area when I travel north to Vero Beach so as to avoid I-95.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Sanitation like clearing out the suckers so that the plants can get some airflow and dry out. I also cut off the sigatoka infected leaves. When things got bad late last summer I was alternating copper with azoxystrobin. I think the cool weather this winter and the extremely dry spring took a lot of pressure off and I haven't had to spray again. I'm kinda interested in trying something called Serenade which is supposed to inhibit sigatoka naturally.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
In the dvd from Scot Nelson it mentions the cleaning out of suckers to improve airflow and decrease the likelihood of fungal infection.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
In the US marketing food can be a PITA with very little or no (negative) profit if things are not done right.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Maybe I asked the question in the wrong forum. I noticed ar963 said 26-27 for a 30lb box, but I thought they were 40lb boxes in the USA.
Does anyone have an idea of the going price for bananas wholesale ATM? |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Ecuador spot price is $5.40 US for 40lb cases.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
My guess for the US is $20-30 for a case. Big stores may have deals to get them directly from South America for cheaper. I did get a case for $5 once though when they accidentally got a shipment that was too big to sell normally.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Different varieties come in different size boxes. Cavendish and Burro come in 40lbs cartons, Manzano and Reds come in 20lbs cartons and baby bananas come in 15 lbs cartons. The Los Angeles terminal market carries all these varieties and has price updates online daily. LA terminal Market Apparently Nam wah bananas are packed in 30lbs boxes but their movement is not great enough to register on the market report. From what I have gathered retail markup on most produce is about 30%-40%. From what I have recently seen in grocery stores it may be even more as bananas at my local grocer are $0.69/lb
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
Thanks Nick. As far as retail price goes you can't gauge by final price all of the time. A lot of the majors(Kroger, Safeway, ect.) use bananas just like milk as lost leaders. Selling at no profit or even below cost. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Nick, a container of bananas from Ecuador to LA by sea costs about $1000, on top of the cost of the cases inside that container. I have no idea how many cases one can fit into a standard 10' sea can. Our bananas don't normally come into Florida by sea anyhoo - LA is more direct, since Miami involves a trip through the Panama Canal.
A single case by air from Quito or Guayaquil to Miami is about $15 on AeroGal reefer cargo; a hair less on Tampa or Martinair reefer cargo. (I'm figuring based on the per-kilo rate given a 40lb case.) Both scenarios assume that you have a few other things done: 1. A signed agreement with Alvaro Noboa for exporting bananas from Ecuador (he's got the export monopoly, the **$%&*$#, so if theoretically I wished to send a hand of Maqueños to a friend in the US, I'd have to clear it with him first since it's fruit leaving the country....) 2. A food-safety certificate for Miami so that the fruit will actually clear customs before it rots 3. If you're going by sea, a receiver in your port of choice so that the fruit just changes reefers; if by air, a reefer truck to pick it up. 4. Some means of force-ripening at your final destination, since all of this is shipped hard green. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I think you can put about 500 cases into a container, so right there you are looking at an extra $2 just to get it there and all the intermediaries haven't yet taken their slice of the pie. I actually saw a lot of bananas from Ecuador this past winter in South Florida grocery stores, which I suppose means that they got here the expensive way
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Yeah, but Chiquita has its own fleet of reefer planes. It's infinitely cheaper when you're not paying cargo. If you're starting to see bananas from Feijoo, that means they came via the canal or were flown to Florida from the California ports, because Feijoo only has ships. Turbana, which is just starting to export a tiny part of the Ecuador crop, ships out of Colombia via Medellin, so they avoid the canal entirely.
Oh, and I have to second what Steve West has to say about bagging the crop - you get a much better and more saleable result from it. In my case, bagging also protects against monkeys; in yours it will be valuable against squirrels and raccoons. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Any idea of what the absolute breakeven price is down there for the average grower
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Ooh, you're talking slave wages. Commercial bananas are grown on plantations; for Chiquita to break even on Hacienda 25, for example (this is 500 ha or 1235 acres of bananas) they need to sell at $2.50-3.00 a case bare minimum. Hacienda 25 grows exclusively Gran Nains. On Hacienda 18, which grows plantains, they need to get $4.00 a case to break even. These are the bananas that you see in your markets up there. The daily wage of a Chiquita plantation worker is $5.00 US based on a 12-hour day; H25 employs about 100 workers.
For a smallholder, they need to be able to sell each raceme for at least $1.00 on the "common" varieties (Cav, Gran Nain, Seda, Orito), $1.50 for the "specialty" varieties (Rosado, Maqueño, Limon), and $3.00 for plantains, both verde and maduro. Most of the domestic bananas are grown this way, and all of the "specialty" bananas that are exported by Chiquita and Dole also come from smallholdings. To give you an idea of the markup locally, I can, at the weekend fresh market, purchase a raceme of Oritos from the producer for $1.50, or I can buy a single hand from a reseller for the same price. A raceme of Oritos is generally 8-10 hands. This is in Quito, where bananas are not generally grown. If I go to a fresh market in Santo Domingo, which is the point of harvest, the price goes down about 50 cents. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Good god, it cost nearly a dollar in fertilizer to produce a nice stalk of bananas
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Yeah, but we're talking economies of grand scale, here. In this case, Chiquita also owns the majority stake in the company that produces their fert. The big plantations, however, spend a lot more on irrigation and pest control.
Smallholders are using "free" sources of fertilizer, namely manure and volcanic ash, so that doesn't factor into their pricing. They're also likely to be depending on nature to irrigate, or to have only the most basic irrigation canals (although this is often quite an ingenious system.) Equally, with the permaculture methods used by smallholders, they're actually getting quite a bit more than just the bananas off of their hectares (and a typical smallholding here is between 2-5 ha or 5-12 acres) - they're also getting papaya, melon, and in many cases citrus as well, which helps to boost the bucks they're getting for each harvest. The permaculture methods used here also seem to help control the spread of most pests and diseases - for example, papayas seem to give a certain level of resistance to Fusarium wilt. The big monocultures aren't taking advantage of this, which means that they have to use chemicals. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I suppose the cost of living in rural ecuador is not that high either, but when I get to thinking about potash at $0.40/lb and nitrogen at about the same price and then the cost of spraying for sigatoka. I think I'd choose a different crop. As a side note it costs me about $4.00 to make a banana stalk without even figuring in any labor.
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
In my area, the green waste picked up by the trash company is composted and one of the collection/disposal sites. I can get all of the compost I want for 10 bucks a yard. A yard of compost covers a lot more than 10 pstems.... I've had no problems with it...the temps of their piles get over 160F and everything, except the bacteria, is killed. Most of the green waste here is grassclippings and shrub/tree trimmings. They shred, pile, and water it. Easily done! |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
In the 7/24 LA TM Report the following was shown: ---BANANAS: MARKET STEADY. 40 lb cartons MX 13.00-14.00 poorer
quality/condition lower Burro 10.50-11.00 ZZ 14.50-17.50 mostly 16.00-16.50 20 lb cartons CB BOAT Manzano 14.50-15.00 EC BOAT Red 10.50-11.50 mostly 10.50-11.00 15 lb cartons EC BOAT Baby 10.00-12.00 mostly 10.00-11.00 cartons institutional pack EC BOAT petite 15.00-16.00 Can someone please explain what is being quoted in this report as I have no clue as to what ZZ or petite are other than pricey. I noticed at the end of the report that 40# of the organic ZZ bananas are fetching 22.00 to 22.50. |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Nicolas, there is Black Sigatoka is in FL. What is known about it in terms of, well, can it stand cool or cold temperatures? As in, if it was to make its way to SE Louisiana what do you - or anyone - think would or could happen? There are a lot of banana plants in SE Louisiana, most of them just as part of the landscape but I know some people who grow them for the fruit as well.
Found this, which is interesting: APSnet Feature - Black Sigatoka of Banana - Disease Note |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
OK, Banfan.
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Hope that helps! |
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
I get about 300-400lbs of nitrogen from the soil, my phosphorus levels are off the charts, the only thing I need is potash and I need a lot of it. The green waste would would be good if I was on sand but I'm on mucky clay.
Quote:
|
Re: Marketing bananas in the US
ZZ stands for "imports"
Quote:
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:55 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin Version 3.6.8,
Copyright ©2000 - 2026, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
All content © Bananas.org & the respective author.