Kalgudi for Efficient Banana Ripening Process

A fruit for all seasons and demographics, banana is always on top demand. Producers face many challenges in the process of making sure that their produce is having maximum reach, retaining its quality. Different types of bananas have different stages of harvesting depending upon the purpose and end use. Most of the times bananas are harvested at a premature stage. If the transportation lead time is longer, they are harvested earlier to ripen during the transit. Banana takes much longer time to ripen naturally, and moreover, the peel splits and fruit does not ripen uniformly, which degrades its quality.

Factors affecting the ripening process

• Fruit maturity: The maturity level of the fruit at harvest decides the length of its ripening period. More mature fruits goes through a lesser ripening period. A kalgudi user can find buyers beforehand and plan the ripening schedule to meet timely requirements.
• Climatic conditions: The shelf life of banana decreases with the increase in temperature. Exposure to direct sunlight also accelerates the ripening process. Kalgudi weather updates help in planning the operations across multiple geographical locations and keep the user updates about the weather conditions in all the locations of interest.
• Surface to volume ratio: Greater the surface to volume ratio of the fruit, lesser will be the loss of moisture. Hence, smaller fruits lose moisture faster and have a lesser lead time in the supply chain.
• Physical characteristics: Fruits with thicker peel can survive for a longer time as greater permeability of peel makes the fruit damage faster. This is another reason why small bananas have a short shelf life as often they have thinner peels. The stomatal density of the plant as a whole also determines the rate of water loss, hence more the density, faster will be the damage.

Farmers and traders are still trying to cope up with the challenges in Fresh Fruits segment. There is a gradual increase in consumption and producers are striving to meet the demand from time to time. A robust supply chain with proper infrastructure like warehouses and logistics is necessary to ensure availability of banana in all seasons.

Kalgudi serves as a solution to most of these challenges by serving as a platform that provides all necessary inputs at every stage of the value chain. It has a vast network of logistics providers, warehousers, traders and retailers. The day to day updates on weather and price, and requirement among the retailers and wholesalers, help in making better operational decisions to push best quality produce into the market at the right time and reap better profits.