CASE STUDY > VENTURE DESIGN

Disrupting the banana industry through advocacy and demand generation.

A $6 billion dollar infrastructure has been created around growing, shipping and selling a single species of banana—the Cavendish—even though growing a single variety leaves that species vulnerable to disease and eventual extinction. 

What’s more, the industry believes that consumers will never pay more than $1/pound for the banana, resulting in the commodification of a high-resource-intensive system with no choice but to push that financial pressure down to the farmers.

Challenge

“Scientists agree, it’s not a matter of if, but when, the Cavendish [banana] will no longer exist.”

— Dan Koeppel, Journalist

After a system analysis of the banana supply chain, my team designed a venture that would intervene to create agricultural change in two ways:

1) Promote easy access to new varieties of bananas

2) Change perception of the banana industry through awareness

Process

Solution

While our initial research into the industry uncovered dire news about the entire supply chain of the Cavendish banana, we knew that shifting consumer behavior would require a positive-spin. We had to sell a pleasurable experience, not just an education. We broke our business plan into 3 phases: aiming to expand palettes, change farming and finally, spark a movement.

We created a tasting box that paired new banana varieties with other well-liked agricultural products—chocolate and coffee. We offered reinforcement to our industry partners by capturing demand data that they could use to justify investment in new tools and processes, as well as price increases beyond the $1/pound ceiling the banana industry has been constrained by for so long.

Creating low-cost marketing tactics, like the “banana-man” delivery bicyclist, a crowd-sourced data platform powered by a volunteer ground team, and strategic partnerships with corporations like Equal Exchange, gave us scale and connections. With only a conservative annual sales growth projection, we expected to break even as soon as year two through these innovative low-cost solutions.