Poor Bananas (Banana Tree)

Member Name: MagdaDH

Product:	Banana Tree
Date:	19/06/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheaper per weight

Disadvantages: not cheaper per fruit, no choice in packet, not fair-trade

I can see the point in having "value" own brand packaged or ready-made foods, but the idea of value brand fresh fruit, especially fruit like bananas, which doesn't have a number of varieties, is a bit suspicious. What is exactly the difference between Value Bananas and other bananas, you might ask?

There is a bit of difference. But not that much, as far as the product itself is concerned.

I normally try to buy Fair-trade bananas, as the difference in price between those and the other kinds I would consider (eat-me-keep-me and kid-sized) is not that great, and I do try to buy Fair-trade when I can. My local Tesco often doesn't have any Fair-trade ones (or have only a couple of battered-looking, bruised packets) and thus I do buy others too. Occasionally even the value ones.

They come in 0.5kg packets and cost about £1, which is probably the cheapest (but in absolute terms not that much cheaper). However, as they come pre-packaged, you don't get a choice as which fruit are included, and what is in the packet is often not very appealing: the fruits are usually pretty large (and I mostly feed bananas to children, which means I'd much rather have 8 smaller ones than four large ones) and often are bruised, sometimes quite heavily.

I don't know whether it's because Tesco rough them on purpose, or because the packets contain so called seconds, but it seems to me that this particular value product is a bit of a false economy.

Thus, in the final count, if I can, I buy Fair-trade bananas as it's mean not to considering relatively small savings; but if I can't, I buy the kid-sized ones which work out better value per piece of fruit than the Value ones.

Summary: false economy