“What we’re doing is changing the banana industry and changing a pattern of global trade that has been enforced for 100 years,” Jennie Coleman, president of Equifruit, says is the genesis for the company’s “Banana Badass” moniker in the latest episode of “The Packer Podcast.”
Coleman, the company’s Chief Banana Badass, says striving to enact true, meaningful change takes a bold strategy and steadfast belief.
“It’s not for the faint of heart to set your mind to a challenge which hasn’t truly been tackled before,” she says. “We really see being a Banana Badass as somebody who has the courage to change.”
And behind all of Equifruit’s creative marketing and eye-catching trade show booths is a strong message and success. Coleman says when she bought the business about 12 years ago, the company sold one container a week; it is now doing 30 times that.
“That’s still a small amount in the overall banana industry, but it certainly points to dramatic interest in our product and also the impact that we’re having with our growers,” she says. “In Canada, right now, one out of three organic bananas is a fair trade banana and most of those are through the Equifruit label.”
Coleman says Equifruit aims to challenge conventional thinking that bananas are loss leaders in grocery stores. While the retail industry might be reluctant to charge more for fair-trade bananas, she says it’s necessary to think about where that money goes.
“When we go into a grocery store and we see the low, low price of bananas and we work that supply chain back and we think of how little is being returned to the small growers or the plantation workers in that supply chain and it makes us a little bit crazy,” she says. “We at Equifruit are really looking for a more fair distribution of value along our supply chain — not just for those small growers and plantation workers we speak about most and of whom we advocate for — but we also want to reassure grocers that they have it in their right to raise prices at retail to make a little bit of more margin on this fruit, that it’s normal for prices to rise and it’s not normal for banana prices to remain stagnant the way they have for decades now.”
Coleman says those retailers that choose to sell fair-trade bananas need to communicate the motivation behind the price increase. And for those retailers that worry this could upset consumers, she says consumers will stand behind the decision.
“If you, as the retailer, make a responsible procurement decision and raise the price for your customers but communicate to them why the price has gone up, they will follow you, they will respect that the courage you’ve taken to do ethical sourcing in the banana category.”
And, Coleman says this isn’t a huge price increase, but a very small one with a big impact.
“We estimate that the increase at retail of a fair trade Equifruit program would be about 20¢ more,” she says. “Americans, on average, eat about 27 lb. of bananas per year. If we do that math, we’re asking consumers to shell out $5 U.S. more per year. It’s very, very accessible. Fair trade could just be the basis for responsible procurement.”
And having those conversations about what it means to ethically source bananas is an important part of enacting change.
“This is what being a Banana Badass is about — is to have those difficult conversations and think about what is in our reach to change,” she says.
