Judging a book by its cover — How to determine a ripe banana

It’s unlikely that 19th century Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford was gazing at a banana when she wrote, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but the well-worn adage is especially true when it comes to bananas.

Any produce retailer who’s peered longingly into a case of the sunny-hued fruit, hoping for a very particular shade of yellow green, can confirm that what constitutes a perfect fruit specimen to one person can be a total disappointment to another. Often, the shade of cavendish banana that’s most desired depends on a number of fulfillment needs, timing and logistic factors held in the mind — or Excel spreadsheet — of the produce team.

Depending on ripeness, bananas range in color from shades of almost hunter green flecked with whispers of yellow, all the way to deep canary yellow speckled with pinpricks of brown. Where a banana falls on this green-to-yellow range holds the key to where this banana will travel next on its circuitous journey from farm to produce aisle.

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To support the industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a numbered color index that conveys quick-glance standardization to help produce buyers make decisions. Depending on whether the case of bananas in question looks like a No. 2 or a No. 5 will determine the exact amount of time the bananas will spend in a ripening room, benefiting from specific temperature controls and piped-in ethylene gas that helps ripening progress smoothly.

After close monitoring in the ripening room confirms that the fruit is the perfect golden yellow color, the fruit is transported to the store. At the store, the bananas are tucked into merchandising displays. Only now can the produce team sit back and wait to discover if the bananas pass the final, most difficult desirability test: Will the ripe fruit catch a shopper’s eye?