HOPCOMS has signed an agreement with KAPPEC to utilise its ethylene ripening unit to ripen bananas in a scientific manner without much human intervention.
| Photo Credit: File Photo
The Horticultural Producers’ Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society (HOPCOMS) has been catering to only individual customers till now, but will soon be catering to retailers as well, selling them good quality bananas at minimum wholesale prices in and around Bengaluru.A.S. Chandre Gowda, president, HOPCOMS, Bengaluru, said, “During festivals, people prefer buying bananas along with other fruits. Mainly because the price of this fruit is low in comparison to other fruits, even during festival season. However, a majority of the sellers fall into the unorganised category, and we want to engage with these sellers and provide them with Grade 1 quality bananas at minimum wholesale prices. Thus, farmers, retailers, and consumers would be in a win-win situation.”Meanwhile, Vinayak Reddy, General Manager at HOPCOMS, highlighted that, as per their study, the organised sector comprises 18% of the market, while the unorganised category is huge and captures around 82% of the market.“The organised category includes HOPCOMS, online delivery platforms, and supermarkets. The unorganised category is made up mostly of street vendors, small kirana outlets, beeda shop outlets and more. At present, HOPCOMS sell around 6 tonnes of bananas per day via the 180 outlets in the city, but we want to cater to this 82% of the unorganised sector, which is a huge market,” Mr. Reddy said.Agreement with KAPPECIn order to cater to this huge market in the future, HOPCOMS has signed an agreement with the Karnataka State Agricultural Produce Processing and Export Corporation Ltd. (KAPPEC) to utilise its ethylene ripening unit to ripen bananas in a scientific manner without much human intervention.At KAPPEC’s unit, machines are used to provide a dose of ethylene to the bananas, and prescribed humidity and carbon dioxide conditions are maintained. This prevents bananas from rotting and helps them ripen gradually and evenly.Mr. Reddy said the fruits ripened in this unit are of export quality. Usually, it takes 3 days to ripen during the summer owing to high temperatures and four days during the winter and monsoon seasons.Huge price differencePresently, in the unorganised sector, middlemen make the most profit on bananas, which HOPCOMS wants to change.For instance, if HOPCOMS procure the Robusta variety bananas at ₹24 per kg from farmers, they will sell them to retailers at ₹26 to ₹28 per kg (the prices vary as per the market price on any given day), and finally they sell them to consumers across the city at ₹35, much lower than banana prices in the market today.“At least a ₹3 to ₹4 difference will be seen in the amount that retailers pay HOPCOMS when compared to buying it from private ethylene ripening units at a wholesale price,” Mr. Reddy said. Published - August 23, 2026 06:01 am IST
