Bananas: the most traded fruit in the world. In Europe alone, 6 billion kg of bananas are imported every year. This is mainly done via the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, where the bananas arrive by ship. Every year millions of kilos of bananas are still rejected for retail and immediately destroyed. This while the bananas can still be used for other applications.

SUNT, Sunergy Systems and Luik Natie have joined forces stand up against the waste of these bananas. Synergy Systems investigated the feasibility of processing these bananas as a high-quality raw material in Sunt’s banana bread. Luik Natie provided support with handling, storage and transport of bananas in the port. In this way we prevent food waste and we create new economic value for a product that until recently was regarded as waste.

In this project, the feasibility of processing rejected bananas into banana puree was investigated. The puree can then be used in smoothies, ice cream, cakes, etc. The results show that it is possible to process rejected bananas from the harbor in a Banana Factory into banana puree. Throwing it away is a shame, we have shown what other possibilities are.

Food Tech Brainport brought the parties together and participated in the feasibility study.