banana food journey

• Stories of Climate Change
• Explore the work of Oxfam
• Looking beyond the single story
• Global Food Challenge
• The Human Impact of Climate Change
• Stand with Refugees
• Making Sense of the Climate Emergency
• New Year's Resolutions
• International Women's Day
• Children's Rights
• Go Bananas: Discover where food comes from
• Climate challenge
• COVID-19 responses around the world
• Raising Her Voice
• Talking about Ukraine in school?
• Sustainable Fashion - A Guide for Teachers
• The World Cup - A Fair Game?
• Talking about Israel and Palestine in school?

Idah, a member of the Kabwadu women's club, holds a bunch of bananas in Chirundu district, Zambia. Photo: Aurelie Marrier d'Unienville

Updated with new facts, photographs and stories, this cross-curricular resource will help learners aged 7-11 to discover where their food comes from.

Learners can gain a vivid insight into the banana supply chain and research the countries where bananas are grown. They will get to grips with Fairtrade and think critically about the enormous impact it can have on the lives of smallholder farmers.

• Use photographs to track the story of a banana
• Investigate the countries where bananas are grown
• Play a simulation game to take on the role of a banana farmer
• Consider the life-changing impact that Fairtrade can have
• Write fruit-themed poetry
• Learn about the life-cycles of plants
• Make a delicious banana cake

Could your learners make it as a banana farmer?

Sign up to Oxfam's Education newsletter

Discover more, oxfam education.

Oxfam Education offers a huge range of ideas, resources and support for developing global learning in the classroom and the whole school.

Contact Oxfam Education

Meet the Oxfam Education team and contact us by email, phone or by post.

Teaching resources

Free activities and ideas for active global citizenship in the classroom and beyond.

Also in this section

• URBAN EXPEDITIONS

The Surprising Science Behind the World's Most Popular Fruit

From tropical plantations to grocery aisles, getting a banana to market is a complex process—and a race against the clock.

This article is part of our Urban Expeditions series, an initiative made possible by a grant from United Technologies to the National Geographic Society.

For more on the history of cultivation and the future of the Cavendish, check out our three-part series on the banana.

FREE BONUS ISSUE

Related topics.

• AGRICULTURE

You May Also Like

Is organic food healthier? That’s the wrong question.

Don't trash the peels! The skins of fruits and veggies pack a nutritional punch

Your acai bowl has a hidden cost

Which leafy greens are healthiest—and which might make you sick?

Everything you think you know about spiders is wrong

• Perpetual Planet
• Environment
• History & Culture
• Paid Content

History & Culture

• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• Future Fables
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Just the Right Book
• Lit Century
• The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan
• New Books Network
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

How the Banana Came To Be—And How It Could Disappear

Emily monosson on the history, evolution, and biological enemies of a staple fruit.

Bananas are a fruit that unites the world. We may not all eat the same variety, but we all know a banana when we see one. Depending on where you live and what kind you eat, they are sweeter or starchier, creamy or tough, all loaded with potassium. Per person in the United States we eat about twelve kilograms (twenty-​seven pounds) of bananas a year, more than any other fresh fruit. Elsewhere around the world, bananas are part of the daily diet. After maize, wheat, and rice, they are the world’s fourth most important staple crop. In some regions bananas provide 30 to 60 percent of daily calories. Though there are thousands of varieties, most of us in the western world eat only one: the Cavendish. These are the sweet “dessert” bananas we find piled on grocery shelves, hanging in convenience stores, and ever-​present in cafeterias. Cavendish are also known as “export bananas” because most are not consumed in the tropics where they are grown but instead are shipped to the United States, Canada, Europe, China, and elsewhere. Of the twenty-​two million tons of bananas exported to the United States, Europe, and Asia, most are grown in Latin America and the Caribbean. Many of those are grown in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.

The rest of the world’s crop, grown on large and small farms and in backyards around the world, are a variety of cooking bananas or plantains (which are bananas that tend to be starchier and tougher skinned) with names like matoke, Lacatan, Rhino Horn, and Pisang Awak. More than one hundred different plantain cultivars grow in West and Central Africa, where they are a staple food for over seventy million people. For millions of small-​scale growers and family farmers the fruit provides both calories and income. Over a million people are employed by the industry, picking, packing, and growing the roughly one hundred billion bananas consumed each year. Many of those millions are employed by companies like Chiquita, Fyffes, Dole, and Del Monte, all growing primarily Cavendish. The fruit sustains a $40 billion global industry.

The banana plant is easy to mistake for a tree, but it is the largest known herbaceous flowering plant. Banana plants belong to the genus Musa and are recognizable by their large, long, fibrous leaves that umbrella away from the stalk. The plants grow, produce flower and fruit, and die. New banana plants grow as shoots that sprout up from the main stem’s base, making each generation a clone of its parent. The cultivated fruits, whether Cavendish or any of the popular varieties of cooking bananas, typically have no seeds. The lack of seeds means that from a genetic standpoint we have been eating the exact same kind of banana for some fifty years.

Depending on how and where it is grown, a typical Cavendish plant bears fruit seven or eight months after planting. The bananas emerge from the plant’s weird, oversized, and unmistakably sexual flower, which produces a single bunch of bananas. The large, drooping bunch is composed of dozens of banana “hands,” the smaller groups of five or six or more bananas that we find hanging by the checkout counter in the market. By harvest time a full banana bunch weighs between twenty and thirty-​five kilos (forty-​four to seventy-​seven pounds). The plant is an incredibly productive herb.

Bananas are Luis Pocasangre’s life work. Pocasangre is the research director and professor at EARTH University in Limón, Costa Rica, where he oversees 439 hectares of banana plants. He grew up in Honduras, the original banana republic, where, he says, “bananas were everywhere and everything.” Even the tennis courts on which he learned to play the game were owned by Chiquita. That he decided to devote his career to bananas was the natural course of things. The banana world is incredibly international. Pocasangre received his doctorate in Germany, but before that he studied plant breeding and biotechnology in Costa Rica, while working on a project for a French agricultural organization. Then he worked with Phil Rowe, a legendary scientist and banana breeder. Over three decades Rowe worked for United Fruit in Honduras, where he bred disease-​resistant, good-​tasting bananas for both export and cooking. Pocasangre now grows several of the hybrids developed by Rowe at EARTH, where he also teaches sustainable agriculture and how to grow bananas to students mainly from rural communities.

Bananas grown for the market need a lot of care, which translates to countless hours of labor. Throughout Pocasangre’s orchard the developing bunches are protected inside bright blue plastic bags that protect the fruits from pests. There are plenty of predators who feed on the sweet, starchy fruit: nematodes, thrips, weevils, beetles, bacteria, and fungi, any one of which might scar, rot, or spot the fruit, ruining the perfection we consumers expect. On a conventional plantation the inside of the bags are treated with an insecticide like chlorpyrifos. The chemical is a known neurotoxicant that has been withdrawn from some markets. At least one study of children living near commercial plantations found that they had been exposed to potentially harmful levels of the chemical. For these reasons and others, in 2021 the US Environmental Protection Agency banned its use on food crops. At EARTH the bags are treated with a combination of garlic and onion oil, and an unmistakable sulfurous smell wafts across the plantation. In addition to the plastic protection, banana workers slip cardboard sheets between each cascading row of banana hands to prevent them from scarring one another. Large, ripe bunches travel from field to processing plant, hanging from a wire tram that runs throughout the plantation like some otherworldly commuters on a trolley. When the banana tram arrives at the processing plant, the fruits are power-​washed and examined for blemishes. Workers pick dead “flowers” from the end of every fruit. Then the hands are separated from the bunch and floated in large vats of water as workers pick, pack, and label the best-​looking banana hands for export. Each banana you buy has been handled with kid gloves by dozens of workers. Boxed bananas are loaded onto a container truck ready for their journey to the United States, Europe, or elsewhere. Some travel for a week or two before they are unpacked and laid out at Whole Foods or Aldis and labeled “sustainably grown.” The rest are sold locally.

One of Pocasangre’s research interests is using beneficial microbes and a probiotic sort of fungus called Trichoderma to prevent insect pests like microscopic nematode worms. Some strains of this common soil fungus, along with other amendments like composted banana plants, are a biological treatment for the nematodes that eat the plant’s roots. Treated plants stand tall. Untreated plants lean on bamboo poles because their roots can no longer support the tall stalks. The alternative control is injection of pesticide gas. The biological treatment works well on bananas, but “bananaeros”—​banana growers—​are a conservative group resistant to change, so many still rely on conventional pesticides.

EARTH’s plantation land is split into widely separated blocks that Pocasangre and others use as a living laboratory to test sustainable solutions for growing the fruits. Between the blocks are forest, wildlife, and river. This arrangement of agricultural crop interspersed with native plants is a form of agroforestry, an alternative to the sweeping, singular monocrops. By not planting every inch of soil with crop, pests and pathogens can’t easily travel from one host to another. It isn’t hard to imagine how the spacing could discourage the spread of a fungus that might otherwise travel from leaf to leaf or root to shoot. Some blocks at EARTH have papaya trees interspersed with the bananas; others combine Cavendish with different cultivars like red Macabu and plantain.

“A real bananara,” says Pocasangre, “will be three thousand, six thousand hectares all in the same banana-​growing region. No separation. Grown as a monoculture because it’s more profitable.” Some plantations are even larger. The vast majority of Cavendish are grown in this way, as monocrops, making them ripe targets for fungi.

A century ago a fungus identified as Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense nearly destroyed the banana industry. The disease caused by this fungus (the so-​called Race-​1 strains that are actually different species) became known as Panama disease or Fusarium wilt of banana. The favored host of the fungus was not the Cavendish but a banana variety called Gros Michel. Gros Michel bananas were the first “big banana.” That cultivar’s popular history began with its discovery in Southeast Asia. A nineteenth-​century French naturalist impressed with the fruit brought a bit of banana plant to the island of Martinique. From there a French botanist brought it to Jamaica. The fruit grew well on the islands, and because they were encased in thick yellow skin, they shipped well too. And it ripened aboard ship. Within decades Gros Michel bananas were popping up on farms all along Central America’s Caribbean coast.

By the late nineteenth century, bunches of Gros Michel bananas were offloading at ports in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston. Americans found a new fruit to love. The lucrative combination of desirable and cheap caught the attention of a Cape Cod ship captain and a Boston grocery worker. In 1885 they formed the Boston Fruit Company, the first commercial banana company. Later renamed the United Fruit Company, by 1930 it was worth more than $200 million. The company’s dark history and that of other early exporters is detailed in John Soluri’s book Banana Cultures and Dan Koeppel’s Banana . As complicated as the business end of bananas was, the agricultural history of the Gros Michel was for a time simple: growers planted it and it grew. By the early twentieth century the tropical fruit was flourishing in Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Guatemala, and anywhere else growers could profit from planting it. By 1913 Americans were eating on average over twenty pounds of bananas a year per person, and United Fruit had seventy thousand hectares in production.

Of the hundreds of known strains of Fusarium most are harmless saprobes living in the soil, sending out filamentous hyphae, and feeding on dead things. But the Race-​1 fungi were insidious killers. No one questions how the fungus spread across Gros Michel plantations: the constant growing of monocrops enriched soils with spore. Wherever soil traveled, spores did too: on plants or suckers, on the soles of a worker’s shoe, on a truck’s tires, with trickles of water, and in floods, hurricanes, and typhoons. Bits of banana plant including leaves, commonly used for packing, could move the fungus farther away.

The industry’s response was to cut virgin forest and create new fields. Some fields were flooded and then replanted with shoots from infected plants. Because flooding suffocated both the disease-​causing fungus along with much of the beneficial soil microbiome, the disease came back with a vengeance. Old plantations were left to rot. Over the years United Fruit scientists tried and failed to find a suitable replacement or breed a resistant, palatable hybrid banana. Eventually industry losses began draining millions of dollars a year from the bottom line. It wasn’t just United Fruit or just Central and South America; the fungus hit growers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, wherever Gros Michel grew. And the growers were to blame. They just kept planting the same old thing in different places.

The outcome was disastrous. It would have destroyed the entire industry except that the Race-​1 fungi were also limited because of their affinity for the commercial banana. The fungus doesn’t infect most other strains of banana, including Cavendish. The Cavendish banana had been known by horticulturists for at least half a century. It was believed to have originated in China, shipped at some point to the island nation of Mauritius controlled by the Dutch, then the French, and then the British (the nation became independent in 1968). When the banana arrived on the island sometime around the turn of the eighteenth century, the British horticulturalist and physician Charles Telfair planted some in his garden. In the late 1820s Telfair sent a sample of the plant back to England, which was planted and then replanted in gardens of wealthy collectors of exotic plants and animals. The banana eventually set roots in the garden of the sixth Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish. Throughout the century the Cavendish banana traveled to colonies and locales in the South Pacific, Egypt, and South Africa.

The Americas at that time had no use for the fruit; they had the Gros Michel. Even as the banana industry took off, the Cavendish was considered too delicate compared to the Gros Michel. The banana didn’t ship as easily as the Gros Michel, which could be tossed onto ships in bunches. The Cavendish was easily bruised and so had to be boxed. Some thought it wasn’t as sweet. Still, it looked and tasted familiar enough, and when Race 1 emerged, it was resistant. Grudgingly the industry switched, changing the process of picking and shipping, and pulling on the kid gloves to provide consumers with the perfect, unblemished banana. Within a few decades Cavendish bananas were growing across enormous monocropped plantations, replacing the Gros Michel. By midcentury United Fruit rebranded with the rollout of the “Chiquita” brand and its eponymous jingle. In 1990 the company rechristened itself as Chiquita Brands International. As a global produce company it remains one of the largest distributors of bananas in the United States.

Now Chiquita, along with the rest of the industry, is facing another round of the dreaded Fusarium wilt. This time it is a highly aggressive fungus called Fusarium odoratissimum and known as Tropical Race-​4, or TR4. Unlike Race-​1 strains, this fungus infects Cavendish plants. To paraphrase Koeppel, the industry could almost have expected this sort of reckoning. And yet they essentially invited the fungus to the table by providing it with a nearly endless monocrop and a means of travel.

__________________________________

Excerpted from Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic by Emily Monosson. Copyright © 2023. Available from W.W. Norton & Company.

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Emily Monosson

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Popular posts.

Follow us on Twitter

None of the Above: On Writing a Biracial Protagonist

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

• Latest News
• Investigative
• Entertainment
• Human Interest
• Inspirational
• Local Listings
• Meet the Team
• Today on Inside Edition
• Inside Health
• Inside Edition InDepth
• Facebook Inside Edition
• Twitter Inside Edition
• Instagram Inside Edition
• YouTube Inside Edition

From Farm to Table: Inside the Journey of a Banana

How bananas get from the farm to your shopping cart, company launches bark air, a high-end travel option for dogs, inside deals: power bank, earbuds and speaker case, water flosser, taylor swift releases surprise 2nd ‘the tortured poets department’ album, bodycam video shows cops meeting man who shot uber driver, a look back at mandisa’s 2006 appearance on ‘american idol’, ‘eye drop murderer’ gets life sentence, nypd arrest over 100 at columbia university pro-palestine rally, man sets himself on fire outside trump hush money trial, could this be the biggest wave ever surfed, ‘american idol’ alum and grammy winner mandisa dead at 47, family wants to find hero who pulled teenager from horrific crash, you could own a piece of beer can island for $1,000, couple charged $143k for phone bill after switzerland trip, 2 dads barely escape death as tree crashes in backyard, reporter apologizes after awkward moment with caitlin clark, heart-stopping video shows married storm chasers driving through iowa tornado, brave shoppers confront alleged peeping tom inside target, bride-to-be gets advice from plane passengers, trump juror asked judge to remove her from hush money trial, man sentenced to 47 years to life for kidnapping girl, inside edition traveled to ecuador, the world's largest exporter of bananas, to learn about how the fruit is grown. .

How do bananas go from a farm to your table?

Inside Edition traveled to Ecuador, the world's largest exporter of bananas, to learn about how the fruit is grown.

It takes nine months for bananas to grow to their full size. During that time, they are covered in plastic bags to protect them from any nasty critters. 

"You do not want any of those bugs or insects arriving into the United States," Anthony Serafino, vice president of banana importer Exp Group, told Inside Edition. 

So what does the perfect banana look like? According to Serafino, it's 8 inches in length and can "easily be ripened." 

Workers cut the bananas down once they reach full size and then haul the bundle of bananas with padded carriers to keep the fruit safe. The bundle is then attached to a cable system, which sends the bananas to the packaging facility at the center of the farm. 

The bananas are washed and then put into a production line, where the stickers are applied to each bundle of fruit. For our report, Inside Edition got its own special stickers to track our very own bananas from Ecuador all the way to New York City. 

The Inside Edition bananas spent two weeks at sea before they arrived at a snowy port in Red Hook, Brooklyn. 

The container with the bananas is off-loaded from the ship and taken to Exp Group's headquarters, where the bananas are ripened. Turns out, even after two weeks at sea, they're still pretty green, a long way from that bright yellow color that indicates they're ready to eat. 

To ripen the bananas quickly, they're loaded into a room that's pumped full of humid air and ethylene, a ripening hormone, which speeds the process along. According to Serafino, it takes anywhere from 72 hours to the 96 hours for the bananas to fully mature. 

Once mature, the bananas are delivered to grocery store shelves. We asked a customer to give the Inside Edition bananas a taste. 

"Very sweet!" she said.

RELATED STORIES

Trending on Inside Edition

How a Local Sheriff Allegedly Stole Millions of Taxpayer Funds for Cars, Designer Clothes and a Private Plane

How to Tell if Your Solar Eclipse Glasses Might Be Counterfeit and Tips on How to View the Eclipse Safely

Deputies Still Unsure of Identity of Woman Found Bound and Unresponsive on South Carolina Riverbank

Indiana Sheriff Accused of Stealing Millions in Taxpayer Funds Allegedly Spent $50K on Cigars: Investigators

‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ Singer Bonnie Tyler Still Loves Her 1983 Hit, Will Sing It During Solar Eclipse

• The Global Supply Chain of Bananas - from farms to your table

November 6, 2020

Bananas are one of the most popular fruits in the world. In Japan, we can find them at supermarkets, convenience stores and groceries. It is said that 9 to 15 bananas are consumed by one household every month in Japan. However, the production of bananas in Japan is quite low, and we import bananas from overseas to make up for the gap in domestic production, which is far below domestic consumption. This article introduces which country produces bananas and what kind of supply chain process bananas have to go through before coming to your table. This article also compares the difference in banana supply chain management among the world's three largest consumption areas, namely North America, Europe, and East Asia.

A wide variety of banana brands are placed on the banana shelves in supermarkets in Japan, but about 80% of them are imported from the Philippines. By the time bananas reach consumers, they go through the hands of producer, exporter, importer, ripening / distributor, and retailer. The long journey of the banana supply chain begins with the cultivation and planting of bananas in the exporting country. About 70 to 100 days later, the flowers of the banana trees bloom, the square fruits become rounded, and when the color of the fruits turns light green, it is time to harvest. Unlike other fruits, bananas can be harvested all year round, because banana production areas are distributed in tropical and subtropical areas. After the bananas are harvested, they are shipped to a local packing plant, washed thoroughly with water, and then sorted, weighed, and packed. When bananas are packed in a cardboard box, a number is stamped on the outside of the box. This number is the identity code, which identifies the farm where the banana was harvested, the packing facility, and the date and time of packing, that ensures the traceability of the bananas. Then, after packing is completed, after undergoing export inspection such as phytosanitary inspection, the bananas finally will be on board the vessel and cross over to the other side of the world.

It probably takes weeks for bananas to cross the ocean, but how are they kept fresh? They are transported using temperature-controlled reefer containers. Recently, some shipping companies have also equipped reefer containers with Remote Container Management (RCM) technology. This makes it possible to remotely track data such as power supply, temperature, humidity, ventilation settings, etc. in the reefer containers even while the bananas are travelling at sea, and safely transport the bananas to the importing countries. Bananas are not directly distributed to the market after arriving at the importing country via sea transportation and undergoing phytosanitary and import customs clearance on the importing country. Instead, the packed banana pallets are first ripened in the ripening room. This is because yellow-colored bananas are generally banned from import by pest control quarantine rules, so when they arrive in the importing country, the bananas are still green and hard. Green hard bananas are brought into this ripening room, which is divided according to the shipping date, and the green bananas are ripened for about 4 to 7 days in this warm room where the temperature, ethylene gas and hydrocarbons are adjusted. The temperature must be kept constant, and temperatures below 13°C or above 18°C can spoil the appearance of bananas. Bananas that have reached the proper ripened state are then moved to the cooling room. Now the bananas are ready to be edible, the bananas are shipped to wholesalers and retailers, and finally delivered to consumers.

Figure 1 below shows the general supply chain of banana from the production area to the consumption area.

Figure 1 Banana's supply chain

(Created by Nittsu Research Institute and Consulting, Inc.)

Making an international comparison of banana imports and exports, there are the following six key findings.

Point 1. Banana productive capacity ≠ export capacity

Figures 2 and 3 show banana productivity and imports by country, respectively. Comparing these, countries that produce a lot of bananas do not necessarily export a lot of bananas. In particular, although India is ranked first and China is ranked second in banana production, their banana exports are not very high. China ranks 9th in export volume, which is low for a large banana producing country. Why is the export volume so small even though they produce large amount? Since these two countries have very large populations, India with about 1.26 billion and China about 1.37 billion, the domestic consumption is also large; therefore the export volume is very small. Besides India and China, the same reasoning can be applied for other populous countries, like Brazil and Indonesia.

Point 2. "Transit point" the Netherlands and Belgium

Figure 3 shows the interesting banana exporters, that is the Netherlands and Belgium. Why do the Netherlands and Belgium rank high as banana exporters when they both are not located in tropical and subtropical areas? This is because they would be functioning as transit points for bananas in Europe due to their international ports.

Figure 2 Banana production by country (2018), Unit: tons

Source) https://knoema.com/

Figure 3 Banana exports by country (2019), Unit: million US dollars

Source) http://www.worldstopexports.com/bananas-exports-country/

Point 3. The import value of bananas of the US is by far the largest and Japan comes sixth in the world

In 2019, the import value of the United States is the highest, which is about 2.5 times the import value of Russia's banana, which is the second largest, making the United States the world's largest importer of bananas in value. On the other hand, Japan's banana imports are the sixth largest in the world, but it can be said that banana consumption is high for the Japanese population. The data also show that most of the world's major banana importers are from North America, Europe and East Asia.

Figure 4 Banana imports by country (2019), Unit: million US dollars

Source) http://www.worldstopexports.com

Point 4. The Philippines is Japan's biggest import partner

As shown in Figure 5, the bananas imported by Japan are mostly from the Philippines. It is said that the COVID-19 shock has reduced the supply of bananas from the Philippines, and the share of banana imports from Ecuador has slightly increased.

Figure 5 Japan Banana imports by country (2018), Unit: million US dollars

Source) http://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search

Point 5. The banana import partner of the US is Latin America

As shown in Figure 6, the banana import partners of the United States are very different from Japan and China, which are major banana importers in Asia, and the United States mainly imports from Central and South America. The amount of imports from Guatemala is by far the largest.

Figure 6 The US Banana imports by country (2019), Unit: million US dollars

Point 6. China's largest banana import partner is also the Philippines

Figure 7 shows China's banana import partners. Like Japan, the Philippines is the largest partner, but Ecuadorian and Vietnamese bananas also have a large share.

Figure 7 China Banana imports by country (2019), Unit: million US dollars

Bananas have become a staple in many family tables around the world today with the help of the development in logistics technologies. Since bananas are popular for their reasonable price, being nutritious, and are hassle-free kind of fruit, there is a view that the demand for bananas is rising slightly despite the shortage of supply. Since this March, due to the spread of the COVID-19 infection, many schools have been temporarily closed and also many workers started working from home. Therefore, more people than ever are spending their time at home during the day. The supply-demand balance of bananas may be affected accordingly if such situation lasts longer. We should pay attention to how the banana supply chain would be changed in the post-COVID-19 era.

Contact our logistics experts for further information.

Our team is ready to answer any questions that you may have.

• Press Center

• Customer Resources

• Food Service Providers
• Supply Chain Solutions
• Transportation
• Executive Bios
• Sustainability/ESG
• Americold Operating System
• Cool It! Blog
• Press Releases
• Stock Information
• Proxy Statement

Going Bananas: A look at the supply chain for the most consumed fruit

Have you ever wondered how you get fresh and ready-to-eat bananas in your kitchen throughout the year? Did you know those bananas can travel around the world staying fresh without turning brown for weeks at a time? 

Americold’s temperature-controlled infrastructure and supply chain solutions play an important role in the distribution of bananas and their journey from their country of origin to your local grocery store. Many of the facilities in our vast network of warehouses around the world are situated near ports or consumer markets to support the unique requirements of storing and transporting this favored fruit and other perishable goods. 

As perishable goods, like fruit and vegetables, travel around the world, they need to be transported, stored and preserved in the right environment to maintain their natural form. With the advanced technology and innovative solutions that are prevalent in the food supply chain industry today, it easier than ever to move temperature-sensitive foods from one country to another, so long as your work with a temperature-controlled supply chain specialist. The supply chain industry uses cold storage cargo containers and warehouses to keep perishable goods fresh and avoid impairing their taste or appearance. A banana goes through numerous steps, such as farming, harvesting, packaging, and transportation, before it reaches a consumer. 

Growth and Distribution of Bananas Globally 

Americold helps perishable goods move from country to country, by providing critical temperature-controlled infrastructure. Because of Americold’s infrastructure and services in the supply chain industry, hundreds of millions of individuals can consume what was once considered an inedible fruit only available across Southeast Asia. Today, almost all of the United States’ banana supplies come from Central America. How did a fruit that was only native in Southeast Asia become so widely available? It’s quite a story. 

A Brief History of Bananas

Historians and anthropologists generally agree that the first banana originated in Southeast Asia and India around 8000 to 5000 BC, with some scientists believing it to be the world’s first fruit. How we know and see bananas today isn’t how they always were or are in other parts of the world. To begin with, there are thousands of different kinds of bananas, growing in various climates and conditions and consumed differently. Some are meant to be cooked while others can be eaten raw. The Cavendish banana is the banana that we are most familiar with as it is the most widely  consumed banana in America. 

From Southeast Asia, the fruit was brought west by Arab conquerors and then transported across land and sea by explorers and missionaries. Although bananas started to be traded internationally by the end of the fourteenth century, it wasn’t until 1834 that the fruit was mass-farmed. From the late 1880s, mass production exploded across the globe. Now, bananas have become the single most consumed fruit in America, out eating apples and oranges combined. The development of railroads and technological advances in refrigerated maritime transport subsequently enabled bananas to become the world's most traded fruit ( Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World ). 

History Channel “ The History of the Banana in Under 2 Mins ” 

Bananas and the Supply Chain Industry

The global production, transportation, and distribution of a banana is a very long, delicate, and complex process that requires a lot of effort and quality control to protect the fruit. Bananas are a relatively soft fruit that can easily be damaged. Bananas can travel around the world due to the advancement of refrigeration systems available on cargo ships, at ports, and at cold storage warehousing facilities being able to replicate the necessary conditions to temporarily suspend the bananas’ natural ripening timeline. From the farm to the consumer's table, bananas go through 6 critical steps during their journey. 

The 6 Steps a Banana Takes to Journey from Farm to Table

The journey that many fruits—including bananas, apples, oranges, and grapes—take is similar across the fresh produce supply chain industry. This journey consists of the same basic six steps, which are:

•     Production
•     Package 
•     Export
•     Import
•     Ripen 
•     Distribute

Step 1: Production  through Farming 

Like most fresh fruit, banana production starts on a farm. This is the first step to preparing bananas for consumption. The largest producers and growers of bananas are Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and Guatemala. Banana production takes approximately nine to twelve months. To keep the banana fresh for shipment, it is necessary to harvest them when they are still green. Once grown and harvested the farmers prepare them for packaging and transportation. The farmer must keep a record of when the banana was harvested, a quality description, and document field identification. These records ensure freshness and ensure the fruit can be traced back to the correct farmer through all of the future processes. 

Step 2: Packaging 

After the bananas are harvested, the fruit is inspected ,  separated into bunches , washed, and packed into boxes. The fruit is labeled according to their destinations and retailers around the globe. The bananas are almost immediately placed into a temperature controlled environment to limit further ripening – the fruit goes into a kind of hibernation. The bananas are then transported to ports and loaded onto cargo ships to begin their global journey.

Step 3: Exporting 

During the export stage, the bananas are kept in cold storage or reefer containers to preserve their integrity and state of hibernation. These journeys can last several weeks but the bananas are safe as they continue to sleep.  

Step 4: Import

Once their journey across the sea is complete, the bananas arrive at a port. A large volume of bananas destined for the United States come from Central America and travel through the Panama Canal to the Port of Wilmington in Delaware. This is the number one seaport for imported bananas in the United States and second in the world! The banana containers are unloaded, cleared through customs,  and transported to temperature-controlled supply chain service provider facilities or in some cases, ripening facilities.

Check out Americold’s port locations to learn more about how we support the global fresh produce supply chain.

Temperature-controlled supply chain service providers, like Americold, continue to store the bananas until their customers place orders and come to collect them. It can take weeks to get a banana from its farm to consumers but only days for them to go brown or one bad bump to be bruised, so the utmost in careful handling is essential throughout their international journey.

Step 5: Ripening

The fruit is removed from the refrigerated containers and placed in an enclosed temperature-controlled room. Here the fruit will start the natural ripening process in a controlled environment that monitors room temperature and humidity, carbon dioxide and ethelyn gas levels, a gas naturally produced by fruits . In some cases, Americold will coordinate ripening and prepare the bananas for point of sale displays, and may even deliver the bananas out to retailer distribution centers. 

The ripening process can also include, slowly rising the room temperature over several days. It is a very precise process that is meant to simulate the natural environment of Central American growing regions, and helps ensure that the bananas are all ripening at the same rate. Time in the ripening room aligns with the order requirements of the grocery store customers: the bananas transition to a color stage between green and yellow – this is why you see bananas at various stages of ripeness in your local grocery store.

Step 6: Distribution

Now the bananas are ready to be shipped to retail distribution centers and on to the grocery stores on refrigerated trucks. The fresh and ready-to-eat bananas will soon be available for purchase. 

This specialized process was developed to ensure the protection of the fruit and to ensure fresh, harvest-like condition once they get to the point of sale. The temperature-controlled supply chain industry plays an essential role throughout this process : from farming to the delivery of bananas at your grocery store, so it’s essential that you, as a seller of bananas, choose supply chain partner s who will protect your investment and  ensure the smooth and careful movement of bananas from their origin until you take delivery yourself.  

Americold’s Role in Distributing Bananas

Americold has port-side facilities dedicated to supporting the international fruit and vegetable supply chain with a full suite of value-added services to ripen, grade, repack, and transport products being imported or exported. We can support the unique environments and conditions necessary to keep fruits and vegetables in peak condition, which means higher quality product on store shelves, and greater return on your investment. Learn more about our storage, port, and transportation capabilities by speaking with our team today or requesting more information.

Subscribe for Updates

Receive the latest news from Americold

Latest Articles

• I'm looking for...
• Information
• See all InTrans staff
• View completed research projects
• View in-progress research projects
• Browse research reports and tech transfer summaries
• Learn about InTrans
• Our focus on infrastructure
• Our focus on Safety
• Our focus on mobility, data analytics and resiliency
• Our focus on construction management
• Our focus on outreach and education
• Find contact and location information

Institute for Transportation

InTrans | News

InTrans / Jan 29, 2015

The journey of bananas: Fruitful exploration

Go magazine.

In our last article of this series, you learned how bananas got from the farm to the shipping port in “The journey of bananas: From land to your hand.” This article explores the how bananas travel from the port of Costa Rica to your local store.

Our story begins at Port Manatee near Tampa, Florida, which is Del Monte’s second largest US port facility. Port Manatee is located just inland from the Gulf of Mexico (on the coast). Del Monte’s imports make them one of Port Manatee’s largest tenants. In our story, we are trying to understand who helps get the bananas from the Costa Rican port to a US grocery store.

Bananas are not easy travelers!

Bananas are not easy travelers by any means. First, they must be harvested while they are green in order to be sure that they will arrive to the store in good condition. Second, since they bruise easily, everyone from the farm to store must try to limit their contact with the bananas. Lastly, bananas only really have two weeks from when they are harvested before they should be sold. Bananas require a lot of attention to get to the store in perfect condition.

Knowing that bananas require so much energy and care to transport, how early do you think banana travel started?

Beginnings of banana travel

The ability for the bananas to be shipped internationally was due to the invention of refrigeration that was first introduced in the 1840s. This also helped speed up global trade of many temperature-sensitive foods such as meat and fruit. The first successful refrigerated shipment was in 1882, which was a shipment that carried meat.

The first successful reefer ship (refrigerated cargo ship) carrying bananas went from Jamaica to the United Kingdom in 1901. One company, United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) built boats starting in 1902 that carried both passengers and bananas between the United States and Central America. Since commercial flights didn’t really begin widely until post World War II (1945), there was a good reason why people were willing to travel on a banana boat:they didn’t have any other realistic travel options!

Today’s banana travel

In today’s banana travel, the process relies heavily on technology to reduce any inefficiencies in the supply chain from farm to store. One key person helping the bananas move are transportation logistic planners. They help coordinate the loading and unloading of the bananas from the shipment vessels at the port. Not only do they manage the overall work team and ensure the health and safety of the workers, but they use computers to track the shipments.

The Cloud and transportation logistics

Del Monte relies on the Cloud for tracking their products from farm to store. When the transportation logistics planner puts information about individual containers’ location into the Cloud, this increases inventory access (reducing waste), increases shipping timing and accuracy, improves customer service, reduces transportation costs, and ultimately, increases profits.

Did you know?

• The Cloud is a way of using the internet to access important information such as stored files, emails, etc. If you have ever used “Google Drive,” that is a part of the Cloud.

Related links

http://www.logility.com/solutions/transportation-and-logistics-optimization

http://www.freshdelmonte.com/our-company/business-divisions/operations-and-sales/north-america-operations-and-sales/

By Jackie Nester, Go! Staff Writer

Go! Magazine Article Index

Latest News

InTrans / Apr 01, 2024

InTrans releases En Route, annual report for 2023 calendar year

InTrans / Mar 27, 2024

Spreadsheet tool aids local agencies in optimizing gradation

InTrans / Mar 26, 2024

CP Tech Center reviews opening of concrete pavement to traffic

• Share full article

Advertisement

Banana Bread, Always and Forever

As long as we have bananas that go brown, we will have Julia Moskin’s perfect banana bread.

By Mia Leimkuhler

My relationship with bananas can best be described by paraphrasing Katy Perry’s 2008 song : We’re hot then we’re cold, we’re yes then we’re no, we’re in then we’re out, we’re up then we’re down. I’ll bring home a Donkey Kong-size haul of them on a Sunday, craving their starchy sweetness. On Monday and Tuesday I’ll proudly peel some for my breakfasts and lunches. But by Friday, I’ll have a pile of forgotten soft crescents streaked with black.

I never worry, though, because a brown, mushy banana yields all sorts of treats . Banana blondies ! Banana smoothies ! And of course, always, forever, banana bread. Julia Moskin’s recipe , adapted from Allrecipes, is the platonic banana bread ideal: buttery, with a touch of molasses flavor from the brown sugar and a bit of crunch from the walnut topping. It’s the perfect, simple baked good I want with my Sunday morning coffee, before I head to the store to repeat my banana cycle.

Featured Recipe

Banana Bread

View Recipe →

With lemons on hand, I’m just a package of chicken and a bag of potatoes away from Melissa Clark’s supremely easy lemony chicken with potatoes and oregano . Thin slices of lemon roast alongside, becoming deeply caramelized and pleasantly bitter — “for true lemon lovers only,” she writes.

I’d say that this eggplant Parmesan pasta by Kay Chun is for eggplant lovers, but I think even the aubergine-avoidant would enjoy it. Cubes of eggplant are fried in olive oil, becoming golden but not greasy, then simmered with tomatoes and basil and served with milky slices of mozzarella and drifts of grated Parmesan. Several readers added anchovies to the olive oil in Step 2; this is not a bad idea.

Sue Li’s fried fish sandwich is crispy and tangy, made in a flash (20 minutes or so) on the stovetop. Sarah DiGregorio’s honey-soy braised pork with lime and ginger , on the other hand, is fall-apart tender and luscious and simmers away all day in your electric slow cooker. Both deserve spots in your weeknight dinner rotation.

And for something that’s cold — but hot, in a spicy way — I love Alexa Weibel’s chopped salad with jalapeño ranch dressing . There’s naturally a good bit of chopping involved, but I’ll usually prepare extra quantities of the ingredients so that I have the next day’s lunch ready to go. Be sure to skim the reader comments here; brilliant additions include pinto beans, grilled chicken, hard-boiled eggs and jicama.

More on Food and Dining

Keep tabs on dining trends, restaurant reviews and recipes..

As inflation remains high, budget cooking doesn’t mean skimping on flavor or making your meals any less satisfying. Try these 12 recipes that won’t break the bank .

In Los Angeles, the restaurant Chain taps into a feverish nostalgia for burgers  and pizza from the 20th century.

It’s not just seafood and Italian in Boston. There’s great Vietnamese, omakase, Peruvian and even bagels. Here are the city’s 25 best restaurants right now .

Food myths come from many sources, and American cooks have swallowed lots of them. A veteran food journalist debunked five common kitchen misconceptions .

Eating in New York City

We asked, you answered: Here are the restaurants our dining-obsessed readers  would rank the best in the city.

Pete Wells, our dining critic, has unveiled his annual ranking of the 100 best restaurants in New York City .

At Shaw-naé’s House on Staten Island, the owner and chef Shaw-naé Dixon serves up Southern classics  and a warm welcome to her “living room.”

Once the pre-eminent food court in Flushing, Queens, for regional Chinese cuisines, the Golden Mall has reopened after a four-year renovation. A new one in Manhattan  is on the horizon.

The History Of Banana Pudding Is More Complex Than You'd Think

T here's a surprising number of foods associated with the American South that don't originate from the region. Pimento cheese (despite often being referred to as "the caviar of the South") is originally from New York, while fried green tomatoes were likely invented by American Jews in the North or Midwest. This doesn't mean these foods are "stolen" or anything; they were just eventually adopted by another region far more so than by their place of origin. But it's also not the only time this has happened.

Banana pudding -- not simply mashed bananas, but a mix of custard, bananas, and Nilla wafers -- is often regarded as being as Southern as it gets; a staple on the level of fried chicken and hush puppies. But banana pudding's origins (muddled though they may be) pretty definitively don't point to the South. So where did it come from? There are two possible answers, depending on your perspective: Massachusetts or Illinois. And how did it become a classic Southern dish, considering neither of those places are anywhere near the South? The way a lot of foods did: Through the port of New Orleans.

Read more: Cake Hacks Every Baker Will Wish They Knew Sooner

New Orleans Is Responsible For Banana Pudding's Southern Popularity

New Orleans is widely and justifiably regarded as the jewel in America's culinary crown, a wondrous fusion of different cuisines (Caribbean, African, Spanish, French, Native American, and even Chinese, Italian, Mexican, and Vietnamese -- a surprising percentage of Earth's continents are represented here) that forms a greater whole, unlike any other food destination on the planet. It's a city that constantly adopts new food traditions and blends them with its own. And while the city didn't create banana pudding the same way it did étouffée, jambalaya, gumbo, and a host of other great dishes, they're definitely responsible for its association with the South.

Bananas are not a native crop to the American South; they come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Admittedly, that's not all that far of a journey -- but it was a longer one before the advent of steamships. In the late 1800s, a whole host of crops became more widely available in the U.S. as overseas travel increased in both speed and cost-efficiency (and refrigeration wasn't that far behind). This was particularly true of anything growing in the countries directly to the South of the United States, and New Orleans was usually their first port of call. Bananas were among these, and eventually, access to the freshest bananas led to the rise of the dish throughout the entire region. But that's not where banana pudding itself was born.

Banana Pudding Originated Around The Turn Of The Century

There are a couple of possible origin points for banana pudding. First, it's important to note that the dish is basically a modified English trifle made with Nilla wafers instead of sponge cake. As for who thought to make that change, our first and best guess is the Northeast. There's a mention of banana pudding in an 1878 New York Times article, while the first actual recipe for something that looks a lot like banana pudding comes from an 1888 issue of "Good Housekeeping," a Massachusetts publication. So, at least the progenitors for banana pudding came from the North.

But the modern form of banana pudding -- with the necessary inclusion of Nilla wafers -- didn't actually arrive until later. In 1921, a printed recipe in the local Bloomington, Illinois newspaper by Laura Kerley became the first recorded use of Nilla wafers (at the time, "Vanilla wafers") in banana pudding instead of sponge cake. Apparently, Nabisco (the makers of the cookie) were paying attention because they went on what was, for the time, an all-out blitz, adding the recipe to the back of their cookie boxes and eventually cementing its association with Nilla wafers.

So, whether you credit the Northeast or the Midwest with modern banana pudding, you can't really credit the South. Still, the region embraced the dessert harder than anywhere else, and that's something.

Read the original article on Daily Meal .

These banana pecan muffins are a naturally sweet start to your day

Ripe banana is one of my go-to ingredients for adding sweetness more healthfully. I add slices of it in peanut butter sandwiches instead of jelly, mash it into pancake or waffle batter, and blend frozen chunks of it into smoothies — no additional sweetener needed. I typically buy a couple of bunches at a time, let them get very ripe with plenty of brown spots, then peel them, break them into chunks and freeze them so I always have some on hand.

Bananas contain sugar — that’s what makes them taste sweet — but their sugar is naturally “packaged” with fiber, antioxidants and essential nutrients, so using the whole fruit is a significantly better way to add sweetness than refined sugar. The fruit also brings its quintessential banana flavor and a measure of moisture, so while it isn’t optimal for every recipe, when it works, it really works. These muffins are a prime example.

Get the recipe: Banana Pecan Muffins

Mashed, ripe bananas are these muffins’ driving ingredient, built to make the most of the overripe fruit. The fruit is mashed, then bound into tender muffin form with whole-wheat flour and egg, perfumed with cinnamon and vanilla, and textured with a crunch of pecans, for a cakelike experience that is nourishing, too.

They do need a dose of sweetness beyond the banana, and I offer two options for achieving that. One is date sugar — a whole-fruit sweetener made of ground, dried dates — which makes the muffins free of added sugar and imparts a more subtle sweetness. (The other option is regular light brown sugar, which yields a more traditional but still-subtle level of sweetness.)

Whichever sweetener you choose, you’ll wind up with an alluring batch of muffins, ideal at breakfast or with an afternoon tea or coffee, to sweeten your day in just the right way.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

'Lucky Girl' is the global journey of a Paralympic medalist

Lakshmi Singh

Paralympic medalist Scout Bassett's book describes her journey in finding success on and off the track. Elsa/Getty Images hide caption

Paralympic medalist Scout Bassett's book describes her journey in finding success on and off the track.

Growing up, Scout Bassett felt like an outsider. Her earliest memories are from an orphanage in China, where she had to figure out how to live with a life-altering disability. She found kindness and hope when another girl offered Bassett help navigating the orphanage.

After Bassett was adopted by a family in the U.S., she felt had to navigate a new world and felt lost until she found running. Scout Bassett is a Paralympic medalist and now, she's sharing her story in a new book, Lucky Girl: Lessons on Overcoming Odds and Building a Limitless Future . Bassett remembers her first race with a running prosthetic on, when she was 14 years old: "I was able to move faster than I ever had in my whole life. And so to wait that long to feel wind as you're moving was just incredible."

Bassett spoke to NPR's Lakshmi Singh about how her journey in navigating her identity in this book, as part of the NPR app-exclusive series, The Sunshine Project . This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Lakshmi Singh: When you were an infant in Nanjing, China, you survived a fire and lost your right leg. You were taken to the local government orphanage and you found a friend there, another girl named Hope. Tell us about her.

Scout Bassett: We gave her the name Hope in the book. That wasn't her actual Chinese name. But we called her that because she really was that for me. And in this orphanage, I was really the only person in the room with a physical disability, where I was immobile and didn't have a prosthetic until a little bit later on. But when I got there, I just got around by using my hands and my one leg to kind of just scoot across the floor. And we had trough-style bathrooms — so not actual toilets. There were several times that I fell. She would see, like, that I'd fall in, and she did her best every time. Like, we had this signal of when I needed to go, and she would just carry me to the bathroom and hold me. And when so much of your dignity is stripped, to be able to have somebody that gives you a little bit of that, for something as basic as using the restroom — she was just such an amazing, like, angel.

Singh: Well, you were adopted by a white family from the United States, and you moved to Michigan just before your eighth birthday. You were an active kid, who wanted freedom to move around. At the age of 14, you were introduced to something new.

Bassett: I received one of those carbon fiber C-shaped or J-shaped running blades. ... I had this panic attack because I'm wearing these little shorts — running shorts — and a yellow sports bra. I realized, oh, wait a minute. I can't cover my running leg.

Singh: You're essentially exposed, closed, totally exposed. And it's either own it or run.

Bassett: Yes. And being 14, I obviously had struggled to fit in and growing up in the small town. And here I am at a track meet and realizing, oh, another thing that's going to be so obvious that I'm not like everybody else. And that's what was terrifying, was being seen for the first time, having to show the world who I really am and not to be able to hide it.

Singh: I mean, things changed internally, right? I mean, something shifted.

Bassett: Yes. Because when I put on the leg, the prosthetic, I was able to move faster and quicker than I ever had in my whole life. That was the first time I ever ran, when I was at 14 years old. And so to wait that long to feel wind as you're moving was just incredible.

Singh: I have to ask. The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are just around the corner in August. What's next for you?

Bassett: It is a full-court press, all-in for the trials at the end of July. I had a bit of a setback in the winter with personal medical things I had to deal with. And — but now we're good and excited for what's to come.

Singh: Are you able to talk a little bit about what you you encountered in the winter?

Bassett: Yeah, I had — actually, on my residual limb, I had a tumor removed. Luckily it was benign. But again, lucky girl — that is bad luck to have something like that happen in the year of the Games. But I feel energized. Boy, we went through something major, and we're now running better than we were at this point last year. There is nothing that has happened in this life that is going to be able to derail me or take me out. And I'm really, really grateful for that.

Pittsburgh baker honors Asian American activists with cookie portraits

• Paralympics

Navigate forward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.

Navigate backward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.

Voronezh on your mind?

Multi-city stops

Top places to visit, 1 kotonok s ul. lizyukova.

2 Alyye Parusa

3 annunciation cathedral, 4 voronezhskiy tsentral'nyy park kul'tury i otdykha, 5 muzey v.m. peskova, top places to eat, 1 gastronomicheskiy restoran moskva, 2 kulinarnaya lavka varvary, 4 staryy gorod, 5 atmosfernyy bar poneslos', what's the weather like in voronezh.

It depends on when you visit! We've compiled data from NASA on what the weather is like in Voronezh for each month of the year: see the links below for more information.

• Weather in Voronezh in January
• Weather in Voronezh in February
• Weather in Voronezh in March
• Weather in Voronezh in April
• Weather in Voronezh in May
• Weather in Voronezh in June
• Weather in Voronezh in July
• Weather in Voronezh in August
• Weather in Voronezh in September
• Weather in Voronezh in October
• Weather in Voronezh in November
• Weather in Voronezh in December

All road trips from Voronezh

• Voronezh to Moscow drive
• Voronezh to Vilnius drive
• Voronezh to Sochi drive
• Voronezh to Kyiv drive
• Voronezh to Nizhny Novgorod drive
• Voronezh to Kazan drive
• Voronezh to Tula drive
• Voronezh to Peterhof drive
• Voronezh to Minsk drive
• Voronezh to Volgograd drive
• Voronezh to Sevastopol drive
• Voronezh to Yaroslavl drive
• Voronezh to Lucerne drive
• Voronezh to Kolomna drive
• Voronezh to Rostov-on-Don drive
• Voronezh to Bled drive
• Voronezh to Vladimir drive
• Voronezh to Batumi drive
• Voronezh to Lviv drive
• Voronezh to Heidelberg drive
• Voronezh to Goreme drive
• Voronezh to Ryazan drive
• Voronezh to Innsbruck drive
• Voronezh to Hohenschwangau drive
• Voronezh to Oswiecim drive
• Voronezh to Wieliczka drive
• Voronezh to Potsdam drive
• Voronezh to Esto-Sadok drive
• Voronezh to Krasnodar drive
• Voronezh to Kostroma drive

Explore nearby places

• Novaya Usman
• Khvoshchevatka
• Novozhivotinnoye
• Petrovskoye
• Novovoronezh
• Novouglyanka
• Vorob'yevka
• Verkhneye Kazachye
• Nizhneye Kazachye
• Ostrogozhsk

All related maps of Voronezh

• Map of Voronezh
• Map of Babyakovo
• Map of Solnechny
• Map of Novaya Usman
• Map of Malyshevo
• Map of Khvoshchevatka
• Map of Novozhivotinnoye
• Map of Ramon
• Map of Kostenki
• Map of Petrovskoye
• Map of Novovoronezh
• Map of Krivoborye
• Map of Nelzha
• Map of Novouglyanka
• Map of Vorob'yevka
• Map of Ksizovo
• Map of Selyavnoye
• Map of Verkhneye Kazachye
• Map of Liski
• Map of Divnogorye
• Map of Popovka
• Map of Nizhneye Kazachye
• Map of Zadonsk
• Map of Zaluzhnoye
• Map of Kamenka
• Map of Tyunino
• Map of Ostrogozhsk
• Map of Khmelinets
• Map of Kashary
• Map of Dvurechki
• Map of Korobovka

Voronezh throughout the year

• Voronezh in January
• Voronezh in February
• Voronezh in March
• Voronezh in April
• Voronezh in May
• Voronezh in June
• Voronezh in July
• Voronezh in August
• Voronezh in September
• Voronezh in October
• Voronezh in November
• Voronezh in December

Looking for day-by-day itineraries in Voronezh?

Get inspired for your trip to Voronezh with our curated itineraries that are jam-packed with popular attractions everyday! Check them out here:

• 1-Day Voronezh Itinerary
• 2-Day Voronezh Itinerary
• 3-Day Voronezh Itinerary
• 4-Day Voronezh Itinerary
• 5-Day Voronezh Itinerary

• Food guides for travelers /
• Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast /

The guide to eat like a local in Voronezh, Russia

Great food and best restaurants in Voronezh

Tasty dishes and restaurant features in Voronezh

You may be interested in

Explore our collection of recipes