Food

Bananas, chocolate and zero waste. What’s not to like?

Shelf Help: Bananitas, made in Dublin by Cream of the Crop, using Fyffes fruit and 70%-cacao chocolate, get top marks for sustainability

Giselle Makinde. Photograph: Kamyla Abreu

Marie Claire Digby's face
Marie Claire Digby
Tue Sep 27 2022 - 05:00

What’s in other people’s shopping baskets and trolleys is always interesting, and we would love to hear about the things you have discovered, too. Tell me about them and I will track them down, try them out and report back. Thank you.

What is it? Bananitas, a snack food made with surplus bananas (€4.90, 130g)

What’s great about it? These delicious treats are made with bananas that are dehydrated, but still retain some chewy texture, and are chopped into chunks and covered in 70 per cent cacao dark chocolate. The fruit comes from Fyffes and the bananas are ones that haven’t met supermarket criteria and would otherwise become food waste. The Bananitas are made by Cream of the Crop, Giselle Makinde’s food company best known for the ice creams and sorbets it produces with a wide range of ingredients saved from landfill. Makinde raised €14,500 in a Kickstarter campaign to finance the purchase of equipment to allow her to make the Bananitas at her production plant in Dublin 11.

What’s in it? They contain only banana and dark chocolate and are gluten free.

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How do I use it? Eat them straight from the bag. They can be stored in a cool place, but are particularly tasty straight from the fridge. There are about 20-22 random sized little logs in each pouch. The shelf life is good — a bag produced in August has a best before date of February 2023.

Where can I buy it? They can be ordered online from creamofthecropgelato.com for delivery nationwide (door-to-door within 48 hours of placing your order), as well as shipping to the UK and mainland Europe. A retail distribution network is being set up too.

Sustainability credentials? Top class, those bananas were otherwise lost to the food chain, and the bag is 100 per cent compostable.

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