Restoring the peel good factor
Good looks aren't everything when it comes to bananas, with Carnarvon's crop making the most of its flavour to capitalise on good taste under the Sweeter label. It's a story of adversity turned into advantage after production dropped from a peak 16,000 tonnes in 1993 to less than 4000 tonnes by 2004 as the irrigation-dependent industry lost market share to bigger, better- coloured fruit from far north Queensland.
"Before the rise of north Queensland, Carnarvon supplied all the bananas for WA; now it's probably about 10 per cent," Sweeter Banana Co-Operative's business manager Doriana Mangili said. "Production went up to 7000 tonnes in 2012, then dropped back down to 4000 tonnes in 2013-2014 because of water shortages. We had the floods in 2010 and haven't had follow-up river flows since then. Last year, we had to go on water rosters, which was just a nightmare for growers. Some trees just didn't make it."
It's been a long, hard road for the co-op, which currently has 22 growers, all on small family farms on the banks of the Gascoyne River, where the industry began in the 1840s, producing Australia's first bananas in an arid desert climate that's isolated from bugs and pests. That's a big plus for Sweeter Bananas, which are not sprayed with fungicides and pesticides, but it also means the trees have to be grown closer together to protect them from temperature extremes and strong sea breezes. Combined with cooler winter nights, the result is a smaller fruit with a longer growing cycle and sometimes leaf-whipped surface which, let's face it, is only skin deep.
"In fact, our growing cycle is about double what it is in north Queensland - and that means we end up with a superior-tasting banana which has a more complex, creamier flavour," she said. "Initially, growers tried to compete by chopping off half the bunches in the paddock to make the fruit bigger but we still couldn't get anywhere near the size and perfection coming out of Queensland, where trees are grown further apart. In the end, growers stopped trying to copy what they couldn't reproduce and decided instead to celebrate what they had and what was different in their fruit. That's how the whole concept of the Lunchbox Banana started."
It's a classic case of clever marketing but it's taken 10 years to get there. Mrs Mangili said only little old ladies used to buy Carnarvon bananas because they remembered them from the good old days but, as people came to stay with friends on farms, they started asking why they couldn't buy the smaller fruit in Perth, and a brand was born that's perfect for children and small appetites.
"We go to the Royal Show every year and do our best to let people know what we have," she said. "We've created the demand. When I started in the co-op, we weren't in the shopping trolleys of mums with kids, so we got Curtin Uni to do blind taste tests (in 2011) and they found nine out of 10 people preferred the taste of our bananas. Herdsman Fresh was the first to stock them and it took off from there."
Sweeter Lunchbox bananas are top of the line, followed by Smoothies, which have slightly damaged skin, and extra-small Sweeties. All come bagged. Ms Mangili said the co-op was initially told nobody would buy Smoothie bananas but they trialled them in Coles and people snapped them up. "They used to make up about 15 per cent of our volume, so that's a lot of bananas to throw out," she said. "We even get queries from Melbourne and Sydney but can barely supply the Perth market.
Bananas have to be picked just before they ripen for optimal flavour, with improvements in cold storage, packing, handling and refrigerated transportation resulting in a better shelf life for consumers. New to the range is a banana bread which makes the most of second-grade fruit that would otherwise go back into the paddock as fertiliser. Each loaf contains no less than three whole bananas and is free of additives and preservatives.
"It's made with WA flour, WA eggs, WA sour cream and real bananas, not pulp," Ms Mangili said. "It's another way of helping keep our industry sustainable. Sometimes we get double bananas, or they're just too badly marked, so we figured if we made banana bread, all people had to do was love the taste. I like it toasted or warmed with butter or ricotta."
'Last year, we had to go on water rosters, which was just a nightmare for growers.'
