Palmer & Harvey has a colour chart to keep its bananas in tip top condition, writes Tan Parsons
They say the devil is in the detail, and at Palmer and Harvey’s impressive Hemel Hempstead depot, nothing is left to chance.
During a tour of the site with depot manager Jon Barratt, I had a look round the three areas where goods are stored at different temperatures – ambient, chilled and frozen.
The freezer room, clocking in at an icy minus 30, is not the sort of place you want to hang around in too long unless you have some seriously warm clothing.
But what caught my eye in particular was in the chilled section, where, at the back, there is a door leading to the ‘banana room’.
Jon explained that if bananas are kept chilled they actually go bad, and while they are kept in the same area as other fresh foods, they need to be kept in their own, specially temperature controlled zone at 14 degrees centigrade.
To make sure that bananas go out to customers in perfect condition, there is a Palmer & Harvey banana colour chart, which shows staff exactly the right colour – between stages 2.5 and 3.5 on the chart. “Bananas are a big area for expansion in the future for us,” he said.
