South Korean grocery chain solves brown banana issue

SOUTH KOREA (WTVD) -- A South Korean grocery chain hopes to solve the issue of brown bananas going to waste by selling packs of the fruit at different stages of ripeness.

E-mart devised 'one-a-day' packs of six bananas, ranging from ready-to-eat to still green and underripe bananas.

The goal behind the banana pack is to prevent brown bananas from going to waste.

Despite the fact that some people have praised the clever brown banana solution, other environmentally conscious shoppers fear the new pack will require an unnecessary amount of plastic.

Bananas have a natural protective coating---the peel---and therefore the extra plastic packaging is viewed as unwarranted.

Some people claim that a simple solution to the brown banana issue could be for shoppers to buy an assortment of ripe and underripe bananas. This would cut out the need for the extra plastic packaging.

It's not clear how much the packs sell for, but customers predicted they would cost more than six loose bananas, as staff would be required to pick out fruit at varying levels of ripeness for the packs.