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Production Overview

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

The TNCs have undergone major changes over time in attempts to retain their huge power over the global industry. Technological changes have included developing new varieties of fruit and chemical methods of controlling disease.

Some changes arose because of major crop failures and plant diseases such as `Panama disease' (banana wilt) which was encouraged to spread by poor management techniques employed by the TNCs in Central America. United Fruit, for example, developed a more disease-resistant variety -- the Cavendish -- in the 1950s.

Since bananas are a highly perishable fruit, the most important technological changes have involved methods of shipping of green bananas to market in refrigerated ships and trucks and, since the 1980s, development of controlled temperature warehousing. Ripening is made uniform by injecting ethylene gas into the controlled atmosphere. Timing is crucial in this process because bananas may have a shelf-life in shops of from one to five days.

United Fruit introduced improved packaging to minimise damage during shipping. In 1964, it also began to compete with its rivals by attaching stickers to its bananas with the brand-name `Chiquita'. It supported this brand with major advertising campaigns in the key markets. Such campaigns, unusual for fresh fruits, claimed that the company's bananas were less likely than those of its competitors to bruise after fully ripening in the consumer's home.

By the 1970s, the other TNCs had also introduced branded bananas and invested large amounts of capital in improving their shipping and handling systems. In the 1990s, Chiquita Brands has introduced cargo ships with on-board microcomputers which monitor refrigerated containers constantly and regulate the temperature and humidity of individual containers when necessary. This allowed Chiquita to maintain the same shipping service with fewer employees. These technological changes are also designed to maintain the `edge' of the TNCs over their rivals in Northern Hemisphere markets.