If you enjoy sliced bananas with your cereal or drinking a banana smoothie, you might want to savor it while you can. Fresh bananas could be one of the first casualties of the dockworkers’ strike.
The strike, now in its third day, has halted traffic at ports along the east coast and the gulf coast which handle an estimated three-quarters of all banana imports.
That includes the port of Wilmington, Del., which is the number one gateway for bananas coming into the U.S.
Ships from Dole and Chiquita — two of the world's biggest banana producers — ferry more than 1.5 million tons of bananas to Wilmington every year from Central and South America.
Many of those bananas are then trucked to M. Levin & Co. in Philadelphia — which has been trading bananas in the region for four generations.
“The bananas are on the water for about seven days," says Tracie Levin, who helps to oversee daily operations at the firm. "They come through the ports here. We pick them up. We ripen them in the ripening rooms for a few days, and then they go out to their stores and that’s how they get to consumers in the area.”
That normally smooth and largely invisible process is one of many that have been interrupted by the dockworkers’ strike, which has halted shipments of everything from auto parts to wine.
Levin is hoping for a quick resolution.
“We want a fair deal for everyone, from the ports to the workers," she says. "Our country relies very heavily on our ports so this is definitely going to have a ripple-down effect if it doesn’t come to an end soon.”
In the banana business for over a century
Of all the goods now treading water in shipping containers, few are more sensitive to the passage of time than fresh fruit. Auto parts and wine generally don’t spoil if they’re stuck in transit for a little while. But for bananas, the clock is ticking.
“These bananas do have a shelf life, even when they’re sitting in the refrigerated containers," Levin says. "If they sit too long they will dry out. They will not ripen properly. It’s really important that they get unloaded before they end up sitting out there too long and just become trash.”
It's something Levin knows very well, since her family has been in the banana business for over a century.
"My great-grandfather in 1906 started ripening bananas on Dock Street in Philadelphia in the cellar," she says.
In those early days, bananas arrived by the boatload still attached to giant stalks. Today the fruit comes in cardboard boxes, stacked in refrigerated shipping containers. Levin’s company handles about 35,000 of those 40-pound cartons every week, supplying big box stores and corner retailers as far west as Chicago.
People may soon go bananas
Levin’s company stockpiled extra truckloads of green bananas before the strike, and they do have some ability to slow the ripening process — but only for so long.
The wholesaler has enough fruit on hand to last a week or so, but after that, look out.
“Our banana supply will be dwindling if the ships aren’t getting the fruit off," Levin says. "The consumer may see a banana shortage at their local grocery stores very soon.”
For now, grocery shoppers might want to pick up a few extra bananas, just in case. But of course, those won’t stay fresh long either.
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