UK: Banana prices stay high

European banana prices have been rising steadily in the last few months, this due to to bad weather in many of the growing areas. According to one UK importer prices this week are between 6 - 17 (19-20), this is slightly down on last week but almost double that of this time last year.
January is typically a time of low volumes and low demand as people start their traditional New Year diets. The big difference this year is supply, floods in Columbia and cold weather in Central and South America along with Hurricane Tomas which devastated banana plantations in the Caribbean and Central America last November and now cold weather in Mexico have all taken their toll on banana supplies.
This high price however is not reflected in the retail price in the supermarkets where bananas are selling at around 77p per kilo. This according to UK sources is a ridiculous situation.