The UK’s biggest farm shop has hit out at constant rock-bottom banana prices on the high street.

Nigel Chandler, farm shop manager at Garsons Farm Shop, in Esher, Surrey, which has an annual £800,000 turnover on fruit and veg, said: “The nails appear to be going deeper and deeper into the coffin of the banana industry. How can the multiple retailers justify their continued price of 74p a kilo?

“We are buying bananas for £1 a kilo and it has become almost embarrassing to put a price ticket of £1.50 a kilo on our shelves, even though that is what we need to sell at. How do you convince a customer that you are not ripping them off at that price?

Chandler admits that Garsons commuter-belt location gives it access to a shopper profile that includes some of the most affluent consumers in the country. “The issue here is that we can compete on product quality, customer service, product knowledge, theatre and customer interaction. These are not just the cheapest products you can buy - and we have a customer base that appreciates that.” Not all farm shops or independent retailers can count on that though, he said.

Consumers in any bracket are price-conscious to a point, but not when it comes to bananas, said Chandler. “We tried bananas on a 99p loss-leader promotion during the Christmas period,” he said. “But we didn’t sell any more volume. The multiples know the market is saturated, and they are not selling any more, so I cannot understand why they maintain such low prices.”

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