Why this picture of Woolworths bananas is causing outrage online
An image of bananas being sold at Woolworths has sparked outrage online with disgruntled customers branding the supermarket's action "ridiculous".
The photo, uploaded to Reddit on Sunday, showed bunches of bananas encased in hard plastic packaging ready for sale.
"Bananas now need packaging it seems," the image from an unknown store was captioned.
The picture was quickly inundated with a series of comments lambasting the supermarket giant for excessive use of plastic across its stores.
"WTF?! That’s ridiculous," one user bluntly wrote.
"God damn I hate that. They come already pre-packaged by nature!" another pointed out.
"Woolies is so f****** bad for overusing plastic packaging like this. Really annoying to see," another comment read.
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Others speculated the practice was a way to boost the supermarket's profits.
"That's because if you leave them as is people will only take the amount of bananas they want. This way if they come in packs of 5 and you need 6 you have to buy 10."
While others suggested the supermarket was cracking down on customers who try and deceive staff to get cheaper fresh produce.
"They want to crack down on people going through the self service checkout and putting them down as potatoes," one comment read.
A Woolworths spokesperson told Yahoo7 News they were committed to reducing the use of plastic in stores.
"At Woolworths we make efforts to use our packaging as efficiently as possible," they said.
"This small range is only available in Queensland stores and is used to package bananas that are different sizes. The majority of our produce is not packaged and since July 2017 we have reduced plastic in produce by over 100 tonnes."
The spokesperson said some customers prefer the convenience of pre-packed products while the packaging helps farmers reduce waste at the start of the supply chain.
