UK-based plant biotech co Tropic is gearing up to launch non-browning bananas in March and bananas with extended shelf-life by the year end—innovations it says will open up the cut fruit market, cut food waste, unlock new export markets, and reduce shipping costs.

Separately, it is expanding field trials of Cavendish bananas resistant to the devastating fusarium wilt fungal disease (TR4) that is decimating crops around the world.

According to [Tropic co-founder Gilad] Gershon: “People have been trying to improve the Cavendish for years with very little success. We spent the first few years of our existence focusing on gene editing in bananas, which is a far from trivial task.

“After several years of development, we started production of [non-browning] seedlings about a year ago, and we’re now starting to offer significant quantities of these banana plants to farmers.

“The bananas have the same taste, smell, sweetness profile, the same everything, except that the flesh doesn’t go brown as quickly, which means you can add them to fruit salads and cut fruit products, opening up a huge new market.”

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