"Gros Michel" - Golden Banana, Golden Opprotunity

I have the inspiration about this topic from "Krung Thep Tu Ra Kit" (www.bangkokbiznews.com). I personally like bananas and eat them almost every day during studying. Surprisingly, even in Switzerland, it is easy to find the “Gros Michel” and I think people here love them. However, I found that just only this particular kind of bananas can massively sell here. How much is the price for 1 kg banana? In here, Switzerland, it’s around 2-3 Swiss France/kg (THB 60-90). In contrast, the regular lunch meal is around CHF 10-20. How popular is the “Gros Michel” in EU? Let’s imagine like this, in every modern shop in Switzerland - Migro, Coop, Denner, you can find bananas. In addition, they sell them all year long, no matter in winter or summer season. Another example, if you like watching tennis, it’s quite often that during the match the professional players often eat “Gros Michel”.


From the article in “Krung Thep Tu Ra Kit”, just only one country – Japan, it consumes 1 million Ton of “Gros Michel” each year. This means around 25 grams/person/day. The selling price for 4 bananas is Yen 100 – 300. Philippine share the most part of Japan’s market, 90%. However, Thailand expected to export only 1,700 in 2010!!! What’s wrong? Nevertheless, the good aspect for Thai’s “Gros Michel” is the quality and the taste which can sell in the premium price (THB 200/4 bananas).














In my opinion, I totally don’t think that only one exceptional kind of bananas can export. We have a lot more kinds of vegetable/fruits that can be export if we know where is the demand, which channel to sell, How to improve the production’s efficiency? Etc. Before the end of the article, I encourage the reader to build their own part, move toward sustainability and long standing business, and use our own strength to be beneficial (for the South East Asia, we have a fertilized and abundant landscapes which can grow the crop all year long). One last remark, it’s important that we need to build cooperative network and don’t forget to concern our society.