Quick Take — Banana cultivation: a pesticide paradise

Banana plantations stretch across Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru, the Philippines and Colombia: territories where the climate is perfect for growing the fruit… and pests. To protect the crops, pesticides and herbicides are used in quantities that a European farmer would not see in an entire career.

All companies claim to follow ‘sustainability’ programmes, but the truth is that a banana at 1.49 €/kg cannot guarantee fair wages, cover ocean transports and ensure clean agriculture. Someone along the supply chain always pays the price: often the health of those who work… and those who consume

Below:

1 some of the pesticides mentioned by ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’ (Rai3) were also found in organic bananas and are banned in the EU but enter it because there are no reciprocity clauses between South America and Europe.

This problem could be changed by a proper implementation of the Mercosur treaty .

2 the label of the Esselunga Bio Ctm Altromercatobananas.

Read also this article on Esselunga private label bananas and in the GD, in general. On pesticides you can read here.

Compiled 10 December 2025, updated 19 March 2026

Factory Positioning: ‘MDD – IDM Strategies and Market

My speech will also start from some of my experiences at Esselunga, where for many years I worked on the development of projects that accompanied an important phase in the evolution of Italian distribution: the Superstores, the Fìdaty card, Esselunga at Home, the ESD purchasing centre, the development of organic products, together with the introduction of the company’s first social report. The aim, of course, is not to look back. Those experiences serve above all as a starting point to reflect on how distribution, the role of retailer brands and the relationship between industry and retail are changing today.

Quick Take — At the supermarket, one in four products is Italian. Over 11.6 billion spent

Gs1 Italy, in 2024 the basket volume marks -0.7%. The most widespread ‘indicator’ of Italianness – the economic report points out – is the tricolour flag, present on over 16 thousand products with positive annual sales in value and stable in volume. It is followed by the claims ‘100% Italian’, which remains stable in value but loses 1.5% in volume, and ‘produced in Italy’, with negative sales in value and volume. Analysts point out that “2024 was not an easy year for European geographical indications either: in the basket of 4,888 references and 1.6 billion euro turnover of PDO, DOC and DOCG products, only PDO references record positive sales in value (5.8%) and volume (2.7%)” for a total of almost 803 million euro.

Flags with the tricolour no longer work. So says someone who put them on Esselunga organic products 25 years ago. Also because they often ‘don’t beat inflation’ and, without proper labelling on the product’s characteristics, they could simply be ‘Italian sounding’. Read also : The false myth of ‘100% Italian’ food

Giuseppe Caprotti’s social commitment at Esselunga: caring for the environment, for people

The one related to care and concern for the environment is a project that goes back a long way, to the 1980s, the first years I spent at Esselunga, and began with organic and natural products in general. It is also the project I am most fond of because it had a soul, a social purpose, as well as a business purpose.