UK accused of plan to further cut cost of bananas at expense of poorest African producers

The UK market is dominated by the “dollar banana” producers of Latin America who benefit from rolled-over EU-negotiated free trade deals. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

It is one of the few British supermarket staples to have bucked the trend during the cost of living crisis, with the price of a bunch of bananas today no more expensive today than three decades ago. Every country in the world with cheaper prices than the UK has its own producers of the fruit.

The government has now been accused of pursuing an irresponsible post-Brexit policy that could reduce the price of bananas further in the shops – but at the cost of the livelihoods of thousands of workers on small plantations in some of Africa’s poorest countries.