Why All the Bananas in the Supermarket Are Exactly the Same

And Why That’s Not a Good Thing

When you go to the supermarket, and more specifically the produce aisle, the bananas you’ll most commonly see bunched together are all the same. Yes, they look the same, but they are, in fact, clones and genetically identical. They are all descended from one single banana plant.

The type of banana you’ll see is the Cavendish variety and by far the most common. Although there are over 1,000 varieties of banana, the Cavendish makes up almost the entire global export market. But why are they all genetically identical? It’s because a new banana plant has to be cultivated from an existing banana root, so the bananas that we buy and eat are sterile and cannot produce a banana plant. It’s also because the Cavendish came from a single banana plant cultivated in a hothouse in England in the 1800s.

That banana plant was grown in 1830 by head gardener Joseph Paxton at the Chatsworth House in Derbyshire Dales, England. It was the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. The plant had been imported from Mauritius, and it took Paxton five years to get the plant to flower. By May 1836, it was filled with over 100 bananas. The banana plant variety was named Cavendish, after the family name of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.