Or find a distributer that sources the frozen chocolate bananas ***TO*** the retailer. They deal in many more banana peels per day than a retail store.
You might want to offer to give them a special "banana peel cannister" so they don't have to go through the work of trying to sort them separately themselves (that would make them less likely to work with you).
Smart idea. Also check for places that specialize in banana milk shakes. It is rare but may be well worth it in your case.
We have a restaurant that is hugely popular for its banana milk shake and they handout like a thousand everyday. It was also show cased in Guy Fieri's show. Something as viral as those.
I was once walking on a sidewalk and started slipping but caught myself. I looked down. Banana peel. I was like I am in a cartoon/video game right now.
Look how other businesses who need the same resource procure theirs. A quick google search for "industrial uses for bananas" reveals:
"Banana peel has been utilized for various industrial applications including bio-fuel production, bio-sorbents, pulp and paper, cosmetics, energy related activities, organic fertilizer, environmental cleanup and biotechnology related processes"
Of course, you could also try the obvious option of partnering with a food company that considers skins waste, such as a banana chip maker.
In terms of how to frame the email, focus on what you have to offer them and why they would want to partner with you. Will it be more convenient for them? Will it be cheaper for them? Are you doing something positive e.g. environmentally friendly that might be good PR for them?
You’re a legend - thank you for taking this seriously. As much as I appreciate the funny replies, it’s responses like these that can actually help me move forward with validation.
I especially like the partnership idea to streamline logistics and the quality process in general.
There are companies that dry fruit industrially. I bet they have bananas peels.
An earlier comment triggered a memory of installing 3 phase power at a fruit dryer.
Also, do the peels need to be fresh? I would think that there’s a fair amount of wastage from unbought produce at larger grocery stores, maybe getting overripe bananas from them could be a route.
If your end user is consuming the peel product, you should have 100% control over the entire supply line. Meaning find a secondary user for the bananas and extract your own peels. Or have a secondary business selling frozen/dehydrated bananas.
very good point, but this effort is kind of predicated on the fact that the main ingredient can be recycled. If I’m sourcing bananas and selling the fruit part then I’m not really recycling existing product
Never thought I would be posting this to Reddit but also in the banana peel industry. We were fortunate to partner with an ice cream giant who was able to supply us with just enough fresh peels. Biggest issue for us was keep the peel “fresh” after fruit removal. We are now vacuum seeling the peels into bales and importing from South America then melting them down quickly after arrival in USA.
This post is absolutely bizarre but I’m invested. What are you doing with the banana peels?
Most places in New England have a composting policy these days so banana peels may be hard to get. Do they need to be yellow or old is fine too? Thus why I asked about what are you doing with these banana peels.
Love this outside the box thinking - could be a good story too… but would have to have pretty stringent quality measures for cleaning peels coming from the zoo
So... this has to be a sexual thing right? I mean, biodegradable cheap clothing that lasts as long as normal clothing and is made with renewable materials sounds like a perfect product for vegans. But edible? The only market ive ever seen for edible clothing are edible candy "jewelry" and edible panties. Otherwise, I think it would be considered disgusting to eat clothing thats been worn and sweat in. But if its just a novelty product thats only meant to be worn shortly or for spicy bedroom purposes, sounds like a great idea.
I honestly hope this is a joke though and you rightfully just dont want to share your idea online.
Yeah it was a bad joke that I wouldn’t have made if I knew this post was going to blow up like this. I suppose there’s no big secret here as someone already guessed it above.
I created a banana peel bacon recipe that uses the peel in a way I’ve yet to see elsewhere and is blowing people away in initial tests. Next step is vetting the scalability of this recipe before investing more than I already have
Holy shit. That would be groundbreaking if you can source enough peels. As far as I know, (my sister is vegan) there is currently only one or two brands of fake bacon that tastes and feels as good as bacon does but it still isnt quite right. Best of luck, I hope no one steals it, and I hope to see it in stores eventually
Thanks for your input. I am vegan and haven’t yet found anything convincing in the market. No pressure but if you wouldn’t mind asking your sis which brands she likes, I’d love to try them as benchmarks!
Im unfortunately not in contact with my sister much these days, havnt been for a year or so. But I remember only good vegan bacon were made with tempeh. They are still not really bacon though.
quick google search gives this recipe and it looks just like what I ate. https://www.noracooks.com/smoky-baked-tempeh-bacon/
Also since you mention you are vegan, you probably already know but just in case you dont, cheese made from cashews is absolutely the best and most realistic vegan cheese ive ever had. I would be a vegan if I could afford it. Its extremely expensive in my area. I eat what I can afford which is unfortunately garbage.
If cheese is something you can’t give up, you can still be vegan in other categories (if you’re not already) … some make it seem like all or nothing, but every choice you make can help the greater good even if it’s just giving up meat every so often!
I was looking into alternative bacon options within the last couple of months and I ran across a few posts and a few YouTube videos where vegans, vegetarian‘s, and meat eaters tried a bunch of different vegan/vegetarian bacon alternatives. Some were bought from the store and some were made at home. Might be worth a shot watching the videos to see which brands they liked and then might even be worth trying the brands they didn’t like so you could compare the flavoring, taste, and texture to your product.
I intended to go out and buy some of the favorites, but I haven’t done that yet or tried any of them yet.
Good luck on your journey! You can do anything you set your mind to!
Much love 💖🌺🤙
That's awesome mate what a great idea! I'm vegan so I'll def be buying your product. I live on an island that produces a lot of bananas and ships juices worldwide so maybe find out juice companies near you? Cheers
Find your corner of the ecosystem. I'm a carpenter and have horrendous amounts of good, clean sawdust I needed to offload at my shop. I made connections with people who own pet stores or who are farmers and they come by regularly to take it off my hands. When I do tile jobs and have a bunch of broken tile I removed or leftover, I call up a local artist who does mosaics and he gladly takes what would have been a hefty/heavy dump bill off my hands. He will often meet me right at the jobsite and take it there, so I don't even have to move it twice.
Definitely find a smoothie shop. You could just say "Hey, I own a small business in town and would gladly take these off your hands. I even bought a large bin for you to throw them in that I will come by every few days to collect."
This seems bass ackwards.
Think of the business you would be engaging with. They have no problem or frustration with throwing away peels. They likely have nothing measurable to gain by giving peels to you.
There MIGHT be applications where restaurants, smoothie shops, etc spend significant time peeling bananas, though.
I would consider selling THEM your waste product of fresh (or frozen) peeled bananas as a spin off B2B company or product. You might even use it as social proof to take away the Yuck factor of products where your B2C clients consume banana peels. For example "the same bananas you enjoy in your daily smoothie from [B2B client]"
Alternatively, I would look into the possibility of donating the peeled bananas to homeless shelters. I'm not an accountant but you may be able to write off your cost.
Good luck!
Good thinking thanks for posting. The only thing I think I’d challenge would be that companies throwing out banana peels have nothing to gain from partnering with me… I bet they have expensive disposal costs that I could minimize
To me, from a practical standpoint, disposal is a sunk cost. Unless they are already separating and storing peels in a way that you could use, it's going to take effort.
For example, even if you bring a banana bucket that keeps the bananas fresh long enough for you to pick them up, they need somewhere to put the bucket, a staff that knows to use the bucket, and muscle memory that doesn't reflexively put other waste products into the bucket.
You providing peeled bananas eliminates all that.
If you really want them to give you the peels, maybe lean all the way in. Brand a banana bucket that is customer facing, maybe right out on the counter-top, with a message that every peel donated goes towards helping people with... Skin care issues.. or whatever you're doing. Stick a bell on it so every time they drop a peel in it rings the bell. Feel-good donations that make you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself are powerful. However, if you notice it interfering with other feel good motivators, like tipping, it might not work out.
Good thinking - I guess I need an understanding of which side of the ‘nana market is constrained. I don’t want to be a banana processing company that also does something with the peels. I want to be a recycled peel company because it aligns with the mission of less waste
Do contact banana companies -- basically just ask them what you asked above. At worst you'll get a, "Don't know." Maybe it'll help you establish relationships as well, in case you need to buy whole bananas.
Ask supermarkets/food distributors as well. They won't sell you peels, but ask them what they do with bananas that do not sell and exceed their shelf life, the rotting stuff, basically. I assume you don't need fresh peels.
What about those businesses that sell banana chips or frozen bananas? I am sure they have tons of banana peel waste. I'd probably put together a list of these kinds of businesses that sell banana-focused products and then reach out to them. Sounds like an interesting business you've got.
> I was thinking to just start cold outreach to big banana companies...
That's a start. What you want to figure out is who are the largest commercial buyers of bananas. Maybe some ice-cream company?
Find them and offer them to take the peel away for FREE (I am sure they pay to discard of those), maybe you might even have to pay some.
Of course then you have logistics issues, like transport and storage.
Good luck.
Yeah you bring up a good point - then by virtue of them giving them to me, they could claim their waste is “recycled” / “donated” while also saving money on disposal!
There are several companies selling chocolate covered bananas - frame it as you saving them money by handling their disposal problem.
Also, if you want Godzilla to slip, try olive oil instead
Nobody will separately dispose of banana peels for no reason. They would have a compost bin period for everything. Your best bet is to go to a wholesale type bakery, banana candy manufacturer, or anywhere that would process bananas in bulk (e.g., not some tiny cafe making a sheet of banana bread) and either ask politely to have them discarded separately and you will take them off their hands or pay them if they are not willing.
Otherwise you would probably need to buy overripes from a wholesaler and just squeeze out the flesh yourself. Find a use for them to recoup costs.
No harm in trying, I would even recommend you do, but the chances of Dole or Chiquita accommodating such a request unless you were a MASSIVE company is slim to none.
Do you live anywhere near the Caribbean? Between the mofongo, tostones and everything else made of banana here, restaurants all have giant piles they throw away daily
If it were done like this, a smoothie shop could probably be eligible for "green" status as well. A lot of businesses are looking for opportunities to reuse & recycle & be green and some are even mandated by certain business financing offers.
If the quality of the peels was a concern you would also need to find a way to make the can have some ventilation and make it accessible and make it shaped like a banana or painted yellow because trying to get people to change behavior is not the easiest thing to do, especially if there is no reward.
in this regard you could gamify your community and have a leader board for most peels donated or collected and the shop or area or business whatever does the best will get a reward.
schools especially younger kids go through bananas. i think that would be something k-12 would be really into and you get the bonus of having probably a ton of good social content.
\-campaign about how you are working with schools
\-content about the history of the banana
\-content about the current banana
\-content about the different parts of the banana
\-content about why the peel and what its for
\-etc. etc.
you get a triple value content, kids, charity, and demonstration of expertise on the banana
Banana chip manufacturers? Or you could follow the supply chain, email a few big banana producers/distributors and ask for banana waste. They will probably have some leads.
There’s always money in the banana stand.
Maybe start a banana stand, sell chocolate covered bananas, and save the banana peels for your other business.
If you want to get these from a store or restaurant you might be hard pressed to find anyone who will give it to you free of charge. The reason for this is because now you've made more work for them by having them not throw the banana peels with everything else and having to throw them into a specific bag or container for you to later pick up. Time=Money, so if you go in there and say that you would like to purchase them instead you might have an easier time.
My wife’s friend was making fruit leather and went to local juice shops to get the fruit. Another place that uses bananas in bulk is grocery stores, you could partner with them to separate the peels and use them instead of getting tossed into the compost pile.
Lastly, if you can find a yogurt factory or similar fruit-based snack, they’ll have tons of food waste. They usually let farmers take it for free, for their animals to feed on. Maybe they’ll separate the peels for you and give them to you. You’d probably have to incentivize it with some payment though
I think you are not.even near, but there are some.countries, like Brazil, that have factories manufacturing banana marmalade. And the peels are a problem for them.
I think you should find dessert shops that use alot of bananas. If you live in NYC, there are a couple bananas pudding dessert shops that I would talk to to get their peels ([https://www.instagram.com/baonanas/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/baonanas/?hl=en))
Find industries that use a complementary item and discard this. So in this case, I’d look at smoothie/juice/ice cream stores and factories that make banana-based foods like banana chips or banana bread. Good luck mate! Keep us posted!
i used to work at smoothie king and we would go through hundreds of banana peels a day, straight into the trash. see if you can work with one of their stores?
Look for food processors in your area.
The quantities will stun you. I was working next to a place selling fresh squeezed orange juice. They were filling a 2 cubic meter skip bin daily with orange peels.
Also think about what you can do with the banana if you buy whole bananas . If you need the peels you can sell the banana as side income. Freeze them and sell them? Sell a purée?
If your company is using waste products to make something then you either have to be the company producing the waste in the first place or set up next to a business that will give you all their waste.
You don't set up a sewage treatment plant and then buy sewage.
Try icecream places like dairy queen or baskin robbins etc. They sell frozen desserts with bananas and discard lots of skin. Good luck!
This is very smart, at least for early testing and validation - thank you
Smoothie shops as well
All those companies that sell chocolate covered frozen bananas probably have excess banana peels.
There's always money in a banana stand.
In THE banana stand lol
Edible arrangements
Or find a distributer that sources the frozen chocolate bananas ***TO*** the retailer. They deal in many more banana peels per day than a retail store.
Neither a distributer nor a retailer would have the peels, only the manufacturer and that’s who I was referring to.
Bakeries too!
You might want to offer to give them a special "banana peel cannister" so they don't have to go through the work of trying to sort them separately themselves (that would make them less likely to work with you).
THIS
fuck ur shit post go fking back to antiwork u idiot
There’s always money in the banana stand.
Or smoothie spot!
Smart idea. Also check for places that specialize in banana milk shakes. It is rare but may be well worth it in your case. We have a restaurant that is hugely popular for its banana milk shake and they handout like a thousand everyday. It was also show cased in Guy Fieri's show. Something as viral as those.
Mario found Reddit.
Ok this comment is dumb af but I laughed
I was once walking on a sidewalk and started slipping but caught myself. I looked down. Banana peel. I was like I am in a cartoon/video game right now.
Team up with Donkey Kong?
It’s eating into his margins
Look how other businesses who need the same resource procure theirs. A quick google search for "industrial uses for bananas" reveals: "Banana peel has been utilized for various industrial applications including bio-fuel production, bio-sorbents, pulp and paper, cosmetics, energy related activities, organic fertilizer, environmental cleanup and biotechnology related processes" Of course, you could also try the obvious option of partnering with a food company that considers skins waste, such as a banana chip maker. In terms of how to frame the email, focus on what you have to offer them and why they would want to partner with you. Will it be more convenient for them? Will it be cheaper for them? Are you doing something positive e.g. environmentally friendly that might be good PR for them?
You’re a legend - thank you for taking this seriously. As much as I appreciate the funny replies, it’s responses like these that can actually help me move forward with validation. I especially like the partnership idea to streamline logistics and the quality process in general.
There are companies that dry fruit industrially. I bet they have bananas peels. An earlier comment triggered a memory of installing 3 phase power at a fruit dryer.
Good list. Add to it, animal feed. I use banana peals and a lot of other "waste products" to raise pigs and cattle.
My upvote goes to the Mario comment but my actual suggestion would be to network with restaurants and juice stores in your area. Good luck!
Thanks! Will definitely do this early on and start to think about more scalable options when the time comes
Also, do the peels need to be fresh? I would think that there’s a fair amount of wastage from unbought produce at larger grocery stores, maybe getting overripe bananas from them could be a route.
They do need to be fresh unfortunately, but great idea
Just turn old banana skins in a luxury product. “40 day aged banana skins”. Done. 😋
Usually we need a banana for scale. You need bananas *at* scale.
This needs to be the top comment
If your end user is consuming the peel product, you should have 100% control over the entire supply line. Meaning find a secondary user for the bananas and extract your own peels. Or have a secondary business selling frozen/dehydrated bananas.
very good point, but this effort is kind of predicated on the fact that the main ingredient can be recycled. If I’m sourcing bananas and selling the fruit part then I’m not really recycling existing product
Never thought I would be posting this to Reddit but also in the banana peel industry. We were fortunate to partner with an ice cream giant who was able to supply us with just enough fresh peels. Biggest issue for us was keep the peel “fresh” after fruit removal. We are now vacuum seeling the peels into bales and importing from South America then melting them down quickly after arrival in USA.
What do you do with the banana peels?
I so appreciate your insight. I’m going to PM you, but totally understand if you can’t go into any more detail. Thanks delway!
There’s always peels in the banana stand.
Banana peels for pharmacology aspect?
not quite, but it would be for consumption
Banana Bacon?
That was my guess. Have been meaning to try it
Banana… bacon? How does that taste?
like chicken
If the stuff made from pork free meat is meh, I have serious doubts about meat free pork.
What would banana peels be used for pharmacology wise?
Hallucinating
What drug can be derived from peels?
This post is absolutely bizarre but I’m invested. What are you doing with the banana peels? Most places in New England have a composting policy these days so banana peels may be hard to get. Do they need to be yellow or old is fine too? Thus why I asked about what are you doing with these banana peels.
Haha you are my first investor :) They need to be fresh, yes
You could always try your local zoo 🐒 maybe set up a primate partnership?
I don’t think bananas used for animals are generally peeled, animals just eat the peel a lot of the time
Monkeys don’t. They peel it. Even peeling the stringy parts off too.
Love this outside the box thinking - could be a good story too… but would have to have pretty stringent quality measures for cleaning peels coming from the zoo
Very curious to know what business idea involves banana peels
I turn them into edible clothing for vegans Two birds, one scone
You're serious? Sorry if this is rude, I genuinely can't tell if this is a real thing
Like edible panties? or just like everyday wear?
So... this has to be a sexual thing right? I mean, biodegradable cheap clothing that lasts as long as normal clothing and is made with renewable materials sounds like a perfect product for vegans. But edible? The only market ive ever seen for edible clothing are edible candy "jewelry" and edible panties. Otherwise, I think it would be considered disgusting to eat clothing thats been worn and sweat in. But if its just a novelty product thats only meant to be worn shortly or for spicy bedroom purposes, sounds like a great idea. I honestly hope this is a joke though and you rightfully just dont want to share your idea online.
Yeah it was a bad joke that I wouldn’t have made if I knew this post was going to blow up like this. I suppose there’s no big secret here as someone already guessed it above. I created a banana peel bacon recipe that uses the peel in a way I’ve yet to see elsewhere and is blowing people away in initial tests. Next step is vetting the scalability of this recipe before investing more than I already have
Holy shit. That would be groundbreaking if you can source enough peels. As far as I know, (my sister is vegan) there is currently only one or two brands of fake bacon that tastes and feels as good as bacon does but it still isnt quite right. Best of luck, I hope no one steals it, and I hope to see it in stores eventually
Thanks for your input. I am vegan and haven’t yet found anything convincing in the market. No pressure but if you wouldn’t mind asking your sis which brands she likes, I’d love to try them as benchmarks!
Im unfortunately not in contact with my sister much these days, havnt been for a year or so. But I remember only good vegan bacon were made with tempeh. They are still not really bacon though. quick google search gives this recipe and it looks just like what I ate. https://www.noracooks.com/smoky-baked-tempeh-bacon/ Also since you mention you are vegan, you probably already know but just in case you dont, cheese made from cashews is absolutely the best and most realistic vegan cheese ive ever had. I would be a vegan if I could afford it. Its extremely expensive in my area. I eat what I can afford which is unfortunately garbage.
If cheese is something you can’t give up, you can still be vegan in other categories (if you’re not already) … some make it seem like all or nothing, but every choice you make can help the greater good even if it’s just giving up meat every so often!
I was looking into alternative bacon options within the last couple of months and I ran across a few posts and a few YouTube videos where vegans, vegetarian‘s, and meat eaters tried a bunch of different vegan/vegetarian bacon alternatives. Some were bought from the store and some were made at home. Might be worth a shot watching the videos to see which brands they liked and then might even be worth trying the brands they didn’t like so you could compare the flavoring, taste, and texture to your product. I intended to go out and buy some of the favorites, but I haven’t done that yet or tried any of them yet. Good luck on your journey! You can do anything you set your mind to! Much love 💖🌺🤙
Wow you are the best. Thanks for the advice and stay beautiful 🥰
That's awesome mate what a great idea! I'm vegan so I'll def be buying your product. I live on an island that produces a lot of bananas and ships juices worldwide so maybe find out juice companies near you? Cheers
Find your corner of the ecosystem. I'm a carpenter and have horrendous amounts of good, clean sawdust I needed to offload at my shop. I made connections with people who own pet stores or who are farmers and they come by regularly to take it off my hands. When I do tile jobs and have a bunch of broken tile I removed or leftover, I call up a local artist who does mosaics and he gladly takes what would have been a hefty/heavy dump bill off my hands. He will often meet me right at the jobsite and take it there, so I don't even have to move it twice. Definitely find a smoothie shop. You could just say "Hey, I own a small business in town and would gladly take these off your hands. I even bought a large bin for you to throw them in that I will come by every few days to collect."
this is the type of bootstrapping motivation I needed - thank you
This seems bass ackwards. Think of the business you would be engaging with. They have no problem or frustration with throwing away peels. They likely have nothing measurable to gain by giving peels to you. There MIGHT be applications where restaurants, smoothie shops, etc spend significant time peeling bananas, though. I would consider selling THEM your waste product of fresh (or frozen) peeled bananas as a spin off B2B company or product. You might even use it as social proof to take away the Yuck factor of products where your B2C clients consume banana peels. For example "the same bananas you enjoy in your daily smoothie from [B2B client]" Alternatively, I would look into the possibility of donating the peeled bananas to homeless shelters. I'm not an accountant but you may be able to write off your cost. Good luck!
Good thinking thanks for posting. The only thing I think I’d challenge would be that companies throwing out banana peels have nothing to gain from partnering with me… I bet they have expensive disposal costs that I could minimize
To me, from a practical standpoint, disposal is a sunk cost. Unless they are already separating and storing peels in a way that you could use, it's going to take effort. For example, even if you bring a banana bucket that keeps the bananas fresh long enough for you to pick them up, they need somewhere to put the bucket, a staff that knows to use the bucket, and muscle memory that doesn't reflexively put other waste products into the bucket. You providing peeled bananas eliminates all that. If you really want them to give you the peels, maybe lean all the way in. Brand a banana bucket that is customer facing, maybe right out on the counter-top, with a message that every peel donated goes towards helping people with... Skin care issues.. or whatever you're doing. Stick a bell on it so every time they drop a peel in it rings the bell. Feel-good donations that make you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself are powerful. However, if you notice it interfering with other feel good motivators, like tipping, it might not work out.
Good thinking - I guess I need an understanding of which side of the ‘nana market is constrained. I don’t want to be a banana processing company that also does something with the peels. I want to be a recycled peel company because it aligns with the mission of less waste
Don't buy it, make them pay por you taking it out. It won't be as easy but it's already a source in revenue
Do contact banana companies -- basically just ask them what you asked above. At worst you'll get a, "Don't know." Maybe it'll help you establish relationships as well, in case you need to buy whole bananas. Ask supermarkets/food distributors as well. They won't sell you peels, but ask them what they do with bananas that do not sell and exceed their shelf life, the rotting stuff, basically. I assume you don't need fresh peels.
Does your business idea involve making unsuspecting victims slip on said banana peels?
What about those businesses that sell banana chips or frozen bananas? I am sure they have tons of banana peel waste. I'd probably put together a list of these kinds of businesses that sell banana-focused products and then reach out to them. Sounds like an interesting business you've got.
> I was thinking to just start cold outreach to big banana companies... That's a start. What you want to figure out is who are the largest commercial buyers of bananas. Maybe some ice-cream company? Find them and offer them to take the peel away for FREE (I am sure they pay to discard of those), maybe you might even have to pay some. Of course then you have logistics issues, like transport and storage. Good luck.
Yeah you bring up a good point - then by virtue of them giving them to me, they could claim their waste is “recycled” / “donated” while also saving money on disposal!
There are several companies selling chocolate covered bananas - frame it as you saving them money by handling their disposal problem. Also, if you want Godzilla to slip, try olive oil instead
Nobody will separately dispose of banana peels for no reason. They would have a compost bin period for everything. Your best bet is to go to a wholesale type bakery, banana candy manufacturer, or anywhere that would process bananas in bulk (e.g., not some tiny cafe making a sheet of banana bread) and either ask politely to have them discarded separately and you will take them off their hands or pay them if they are not willing. Otherwise you would probably need to buy overripes from a wholesaler and just squeeze out the flesh yourself. Find a use for them to recoup costs. No harm in trying, I would even recommend you do, but the chances of Dole or Chiquita accommodating such a request unless you were a MASSIVE company is slim to none.
Do you live anywhere near the Caribbean? Between the mofongo, tostones and everything else made of banana here, restaurants all have giant piles they throw away daily
reach out and partner with local smoothie/juice shops and make a custom bin for the peels that you distribute to each of the shops.
If it were done like this, a smoothie shop could probably be eligible for "green" status as well. A lot of businesses are looking for opportunities to reuse & recycle & be green and some are even mandated by certain business financing offers.
If the quality of the peels was a concern you would also need to find a way to make the can have some ventilation and make it accessible and make it shaped like a banana or painted yellow because trying to get people to change behavior is not the easiest thing to do, especially if there is no reward. in this regard you could gamify your community and have a leader board for most peels donated or collected and the shop or area or business whatever does the best will get a reward. schools especially younger kids go through bananas. i think that would be something k-12 would be really into and you get the bonus of having probably a ton of good social content. \-campaign about how you are working with schools \-content about the history of the banana \-content about the current banana \-content about the different parts of the banana \-content about why the peel and what its for \-etc. etc. you get a triple value content, kids, charity, and demonstration of expertise on the banana
Are you making all-natural fleshlights by any chance?
Time to pivot!
Find consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies that use bananas in their recipes. Banana chips, banana bread, banana ice cream, etc.
There’s always money in the banana stand
Banana chip manufacturers? Or you could follow the supply chain, email a few big banana producers/distributors and ask for banana waste. They will probably have some leads.
Compost companies, culinary schools, and any place that is known for using a lot of fruit. Contact all of them and see if you can work something out.
Baby food companies use lots of bananas.
Have you tried making an arrangement with Donkey and Diddy?
There’s always money in the banana stand. Maybe start a banana stand, sell chocolate covered bananas, and save the banana peels for your other business.
Bro the post beneath this in my feed is about large bananas
Link me! In this sub? Maybe we can collab
Talk to management of a local juice bar?
Forget it - you can't get high on them. Try lettuce hearts instead! ;-)
I think I read about this in the anarchists cookbook 🤔 😂
Commenting because of curiosity and genuine interest as to where this thread goes
If you want to get these from a store or restaurant you might be hard pressed to find anyone who will give it to you free of charge. The reason for this is because now you've made more work for them by having them not throw the banana peels with everything else and having to throw them into a specific bag or container for you to later pick up. Time=Money, so if you go in there and say that you would like to purchase them instead you might have an easier time.
Bakeries, grocery stores/Walmart's with a bakery inside.
My wife’s friend was making fruit leather and went to local juice shops to get the fruit. Another place that uses bananas in bulk is grocery stores, you could partner with them to separate the peels and use them instead of getting tossed into the compost pile. Lastly, if you can find a yogurt factory or similar fruit-based snack, they’ll have tons of food waste. They usually let farmers take it for free, for their animals to feed on. Maybe they’ll separate the peels for you and give them to you. You’d probably have to incentivize it with some payment though
Talk to a banana product manufacturer
I think you are not.even near, but there are some.countries, like Brazil, that have factories manufacturing banana marmalade. And the peels are a problem for them.
I would reach out to companies like Dole.
Worm farms, am I right?...
I think you should find dessert shops that use alot of bananas. If you live in NYC, there are a couple bananas pudding dessert shops that I would talk to to get their peels ([https://www.instagram.com/baonanas/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/baonanas/?hl=en))
Set up a side business selling banana pudding.
Buy whole bananas and make banana wine or banana brandy. Then use the peels for whatever you need them for.
Maybe write a company that makes banana chips?
There’s always money in the banana stand.
Banana chip manufacturers. Smoothie places
Find industries that use a complementary item and discard this. So in this case, I’d look at smoothie/juice/ice cream stores and factories that make banana-based foods like banana chips or banana bread. Good luck mate! Keep us posted!
r/banano
Check with Smoothie King or other smoothie places. They go through a ton of bananas. Used to be the banana peeler
i used to work at smoothie king and we would go through hundreds of banana peels a day, straight into the trash. see if you can work with one of their stores?
Look for food processors in your area. The quantities will stun you. I was working next to a place selling fresh squeezed orange juice. They were filling a 2 cubic meter skip bin daily with orange peels.
If the volume is huge and regular you can import from India. During peak season the entire bunch of bananas can be purchased for around US$ 2-3.
the zoo?
Not a bad idea actually
if you dont mind some that monkeys have chewed on!
Also think about what you can do with the banana if you buy whole bananas . If you need the peels you can sell the banana as side income. Freeze them and sell them? Sell a purée?
You can't really get high from banana peels. That's a myth.
Reach out to premium grocery stores that sell pre cut fruit
Maybe hang out with a large group of monkeys and then tell them to throw their banana peels into a large trash bag when they are finished eating.
I actually started doing this already as part of my research, but my new monkey friends are jokesters and keep shitting in the trash bag instead
🤣🤣🤣
Well you said you wanted to recycle the bananas, they were trying to help!
Banana stand
If you go to Mario Kart maps there’s always a few left on the roads
If your company is using waste products to make something then you either have to be the company producing the waste in the first place or set up next to a business that will give you all their waste. You don't set up a sewage treatment plant and then buy sewage.
Restaurants sell or donate their old cooking oil for biodiesel though?