This story was provided by the Strathcona Food Bank as part of the Food Finder Strathcona campaign brought to you by Strathcona County's Food Security Action Table. 

Hello, my name is Dextra Powe, and I am excited to take you through an exploration of the humble banana and the journey from seed to the grocery store. At Salisbury Composite High School, we are committed to minimizing food waste and working with local partners to make the most of every banana, ensuring we reduce our environmental footprint. Let’s learn together about the journey of the banana and how we can make a difference! 

Bananas are a household staple, often ignored and overlooked, but bananas go through a long journey to be at our tables. A tree's life cycle begins with tiny black seeds that are produced by the fruit's flowers. After the initial growth phase, the tree enters a vegetative stage, when it gets its long, large leaves that are arranged in a spiral, forming a crown at the top of the tree. These leaves are so crucial for the plant's life cycle, as they capture sunlight in the crown and convert it into energy through photosynthesis. 

These banana trees have a super unique growth pattern called monocarpic flowering; this means the tree only flowers once in its lifetime! Banana flowers are vibrant in colours from red to purple. The flower contains male and female reproductive organs, making it self-fertile. Now, for the tree to produce bananas, they grow in clusters known as "hands," with each hand having multiple fruits called "fingers." The banana starts as little green bulbs at the base of the female flower and lengthens as it ages; once the fruit reaches the desired size and ripeness, it is ready for harvest! 

The banana is then carefully cut from the tree while still green to ripen off the plant. This helps control how ripe the banana gets, and this also helps lessen the chances of damaging the bananas during transport. The fruit is now sailing the sea through independent reefer carriers or fleets, which are then unloaded to the importing countries and into your grocery store. 

The life cycle of a banana tree and its long journey is a story to be honoured. The Love Food Hate Waste program reports 640,000 bananas are wasted daily in Canada; wasting this many bananas has a severe negative toll on Canada’s greenhouse admissions with a significant carbon footprint of 6.9 million tonnes of CO2, that’s 2.1 million cars on the road! 

Food waste is a very serious issue that is often overlooked in today’s society. With all the severe consequences of food waste, there are very simple ways to mitigate these problems. It could be as small as saving those ugly bananas to make soft and delicious banana bread. At Salisbury Composite High School, we take the extra steps to lessen our food waste and often partner up with the food bank to take those ugly bananas, peel and freeze them, and process and bake them into bread. Finally, that bread is returned to the food bank and served as tasty banana goods.