Chronicle of raw materials
Faced with competition, the French banana takes care of its image
Audio 01:43
The French banana is doing everything to “resist” the competition (Illustration image).
Getty Images - Buena Vista Images
By: Marie-Pierre Olphand Follow
2 mins
France produces 200,000 tons of bananas a year, a drop in the bucket on the world market.
Faced with tough competition, Guadeloupe and Martinique are seeking to stand out, with a sustainable banana label.
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Bananas are not the best student in terms of carbon footprint and good environmental practices.
But the sector is making efforts, in particular that of Guadeloupe and Martinique.
For the French banana, it is a question of survival if it wants to keep a place in an increasingly competitive market, after a complicated year 2021.
The fruits of the West Indies suffer from the privileges granted to the dollar banana, the one that comes from Latin America, which benefits from very favorable marketing conditions in Europe with a reduction in customs duties of 50% in ten years.
At the same time, mass distribution has changed its practice: it buys massively, in a more centralized way, and has developed its online sales.
A model in which the French banana struggles to exist.
-75% of phytosanitary products in 15 years
The West Indies sector has therefore chosen to take care of its image.
And highlights its performance: -38% fertilizer and -75% phytosanitary products used in 15 years.
As for the carbon footprint, it has decreased by 14%.
It now amounts to 800 g of greenhouse gas emissions per kilo of banana.
It remains higher than that of the apple which is 300 g, but equivalent to strawberries from Spain, and much lower than that of eggs and meat, whose carbon balance is notoriously bad.
For its progress in terms of carbon footprint, the West Indian banana can say thank you to the CMA/CGM, its transport partner.
Because the company, which today has 26 ships running on LNG, has halved its carbon contribution – from 260 to 130 g per kilo of banana.
On an experimental basis, one container per week of West Indian bananas also travels thanks to biofuel.
French bananas will also suffer the effects of the war in Ukraine
The French banana is doing everything to "resist", in the words used by the Union of Banana Producers' Groups of Guadeloupe and Martinique in the face of prices which in 2021 were at their lowest: 11.7 euros the average annual price of cardboard, compared to 15 euros in 2016.
But like other bananas, it is suffering from the war in Ukraine.
Unused cases are added to the European market, which acts as a balancing market.
With the risk of a further fall in prices.
Over time, Pierre Monteux, the director of UGPBAN, fears a tsunami for the sector, marked by a further drop in prices.
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