The ongoing banana war has claimed a new victim - promotional body the Banana Group.
After 21 years of running a successful campaign to increase consumption of bananas, the group has announced it has reluctantly decided to cease its activities.
David Read, chairman, said the price competition had become too intense to continue: “A long and sustained period of artificially depressed UK price returns has removed all incentives for ripeners and growers to invest further in increasing consumption in the UK market.”
The Banana Group’s campaign has been claimed as the driving force in increasing consumption and is often held up as one of the most successful category marketing campaigns in Europe, he said.
The group and its agency, BMA Communications, have won many awards for the campaign over the past two decades and while consumption of bananas has increased during the period by more than 150 per cent, consumption increase of fresh fruit as a whole has been just 15 per cent.
Jane Beechey, md of BMA, said: “We are proud to have been able to work with the directors of the Banana Group on a campaign which has done much to encourage healthy eating through banana consumption.
“We very much regret the end of the campaign, but its single-minded approach to promote the energy-giving effects of eating bananas has lasted longer than the vast majority of campaigns, and, as a result, the success has been evident.”
