Finally back from Africa. Amazing bananas, amazing stories and photos. Exhausted. No blog entries, of course – but you’ll see tons over the next few weeks. In the meantime, thanks to my buddy Rich Snodsmith – also a shirt of the month contributor – here’s Trader Joe’s holding banana prices down. Bravo – especially considering that wholesale banana prices have more than doubled in that five-year period! Can anyone say “loss leader?”
But wait – is that nineteen-cent banana really a bargain? Most other stores sell fruit by the pound. Generally, a supermarket fruit weighs a bit more than six ounces – you get about two and a half bananas per pound (sure, sometimes they’re smaller, but I’m assuming bigger because at TJ’s, you get to choose.) What about banana prices? These days, you’re lucky to pay 59 cents for a pound of the fruit in most cities. Sixty-nine cents seems to be the average, and a dime more isn’t unheard
Here’s the math:
- At 59 cents for a pound, a single banana costs about 24 cents.
- Add ten cents to the bulk price, and you pay a bit less than 28 cents per fruit.
- Another dime at the scale, and a single banana sets you back almost 32 cents.
What about organics? They usually run about 99 cents a pound – yielding a whopping forty cents per banana.
The Trader Joe banana turns out to be the real deal – coming in at less than 50 cents per pound. They’re probably the cheapest bananas in America.
Thanks, Rich!
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman 
[...] at 19ยข each, the price comes out to about a half buck a pound (according to my banana price/weight index.) But there are even cheaper ways to get bananas in L.A. At the city’s Grand Central Square [...]