Dear Del Monte,
I am resolutely regretful to inform you of an ongoing, heinous error, at your packaging and distribution plant. Logically it can only be the result of an ill-conceived factory packaging error; when else would a single banana be considered a good item to be individually wrapped in plastic?
In my quest for reason to the unanswerable I did a small amount of research (while I polished off my third glass of wine) and found diatribes of discussion on this very specific matter, along with your terribly clever terms of CRT (controlled ripening technology.) I mean, honestly who doesn’t love a perfectly ripe banana? People are ‘bananas’ for bananas. It’s pretty much science.
But while I do greatly commend you for your efforts in food preservation and your suppositions that this ‘new’ method is SEALED FOR FRESHNESS, brings a healthy, less perishable alternative snack to vending machines and other distribution sources that would not usually have healthy options. I can’t help to wonder if this is the most effective and sustainable route? Even with the promise of using recyclable plastic and a reduced carbon footprint from less deliveries and perishable waste, surely this is at best an insufficient Band-Aid solution of putting a pretty wrapper on a bigger problem (see what I did there?) Obesity and accessibility to healthful convenience snacks is a problem much, much larger than putting a very green banana into a sheath of branded plastic and selling it for a grossly inflated premium.
Perhaps instead of commanding industry change through imprudent marketing ploys that have surely reflected less than exemplary critique for your overall environmental optics which must undoubtedly weigh heavily on the sleep patterns of upper management, why not use this initiative to really impact worthwhile change? You sell fruit to other humans, this is a good thing. So why not do it better than everyone else? Impact change and distribution through community programs at a grassroots level. Combatively address obesity through education and real platforms of change. Not by producing, printing and plastic wrapping individual fruit that nature essentially delivers very well dressed in its own durable, fully biodegradable birthday suit. That’s just bananas and not in the good way.
A very rudimentary search of the inter-webs, readily revealed there are a myriad of other exciting ways to keep a single banana fresh. Including but not limited to: simply wrapping the top of the stem. A Banana Hat if you will. Perhaps you might consider marketing a reusable version of this, should your continued and tireless search for banana freshness and healthy vending machine options prove to still be too overwhelming. I smell the DelMonte Banana Hat millions rolling in amidst a cacophony of environment kudos. You’re welcome.
I would be remiss to not list a few of the many other items that are far better suited to the rigors of factory packaging: raw meat, yogurt, granular sugar and a plague of locusts. I think we all agree those bastards would be in greater need of containment. I can, without great strain, think of many more. Perhaps the team that approved such an environmentally rancid concept of packaging a single piece of fruit would like me to make a more extensive list. I like making lists; I can make lists about lists.
As our world tries to place more palpable emphasis on the impact we are having on our tiny blue planet, I am deeply regretful to have to be the one to point out the need for real change and not ‘clever’ marketing jargon and strategies. We can only hope this ‘banana matter’ will be rectified with the speed and urgency that our struggling planet desperately requires us humans to be less wasteful.
Please be a better human.
Sincerely,
A human being
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