The new super bananas that get old
Gene editing has long been touted as one of the next frontiers of food production, but the future is finally here. Tropic, a biotech firm based near Norwich, is launching a revolutionary product this month: the non-browning banana. After 10,000 years of humans enduring bananas that go brown, our ingenuity has finally provided a solution.
The new variant of the fruit has taken years of research. Using a proprietary technique called Geigs (gene editing induced gene silencing), similar to Crispr (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), Tropic has modified the Cavendish banana – the variety that comprises 99 per cent of all the bananas eaten in the UK – so its flesh does not go brown. Until now, bananas have been unwelcome guests in a fruit salad, becoming unappealingly sludgy within minutes of being undressed.
'They have the same taste, smell, sweetness profile, the same everything, except that the flesh doesn't go brown as quickly, which means you can add them to fruit salads and cut-fruit products, opening up a huge new market,' says Gilad Gershon, Tropic's co-founder. 'This is very exciting to the industry as, historically, you wouldn't include bananas, which are very popular fruits, in a prepared fruit selection in a store, because they go brown too quickly.'
Browning is triggered by polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that catalyses the oxidation of certain compounds in the banana's flesh. By 'cutting out' the genes responsible for the enzyme, Tropic's scientists have slowed the browning process. This gene editing is different from other forms of genetic modification, in which new genes are introduced from other species, and typically comes with fewer regulatory obstacles.
Tropic says the change only affects the colour, it won't change the sweetness. Your banana will still get old, it just won't get so brown. Tropic predicts the non-browning banana – which has been approved in the United States and Canada, and it hopes soon in the UK – will reduce food waste and save millions of tons in carbon emissions.
This is only the first in a series of edited bananas Tropic has planned. By the end of this year, it also hopes to release its extended-shelf-life bananas, which stay green for up to 10 days longer, making them easier to transport. Tropic is also working on versions that are resistant to Panama and Black Sigatoka disease.
Any talk of 'Frankenfruit' brings out the sceptics. But Cavendish bananas are already the mutant children of centuries of tinkering. They do not produce seeds, and are instead propagated from cuttings so they are all practically identical, making them extremely vulnerable to diseases.
Tropic's bananas are not the first gene-edited product – a Crispr-edited tomato has been on sale in Japan since 2021 and edited soybeans are also available – and they certainly will not be the last. But the banana is Britain's most popular supermarket item, a green and yellow emblem of globalisation: cheap, tasty, nutritious and amusing to eat. It has quietly achieved supremacy while traditional British crops have fallen by the wayside. Over the past 50 years, the average consumption of turnips has plummeted, while banana consumption has more than doubled. Today, British households get through around 25kg of them per year. For Tropic and the other companies busily editing fruit and veg, the potential market is too big to ignore. When it comes to bananas, it pays to stay ahead of the curve.
This week's specials
Portable cooking just gained a new status symbol. Somerset Grill Co 's Asado Go! is a wood-fired grill small enough to be carried around. Just the thing for turning your corner of the beach into San Sebastian (£895).
Entries are now open for the British Library 's Food Season Awards, which this year include a new prize for writing, sponsored by the online magazine Vittles. The winner will receive £1,500 and access to the library's collections.
Harvey Nichols is making a play for the north London crowd by welcoming Trullo, the Islington Italian, for a three-month residency. Among the new dishes will be tagliarini with caviar. Patsy and Edina would approve.
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