Bananas are the #1 most-sold item at most grocery stores including, notably, Wal-Mart.
Bananas also have the highest standard deviation in terms of predicting if a given (known) consumer will purchase bananas in a given store run. (At least as compared to other food products and consumables.) When predicting a consumer's shop, it's generally pretty easy to make a highly educated guess about their purchasing activity and, thus, to project volumes for products. But bananas defy that wisdom, except that people in aggregate buy a lot of them. Someone who buys bananas reliably every week for months will randomly stop for months, and then start again, for no perceivable rhyme or reason. Bananas aren't seasonal purchases like berries or corn or other fruits or vegetables. Bananas also tend to be a high volume item at gas stations and convenience stores.
Bananas have to be effectively "tricked" into continuing to ripen after being prematurely picked green and then refrigerated for transit. So there are banana ripening centers that pump ethylene through a chilled chamber to get them to ripen.
> Someone who buys bananas reliably every week for months will randomly stop for months, and then start again, for no perceivable rhyme or reason.
The bananas were cut up or pureed and fed to a child at a particular stage of development. Kid is now eating on their own, doesn’t want bananas or doesn’t have the dexterity to peel them. Parents reintroduce bananas a few months later, kid likes them again.
Or someone got a new job and they’re not eating breakfast at home. A few months later, they go back to eating at home to save money or lose weight.
> Bananas also tend to be a high volume item at gas stations and convenience stores.
Bananas are often the only fresh fruit at convenience stores. Sometimes there are apples or oranges that look extremely underripe or dried out and starchy. Bananas also don’t need to be washed and don’t excrete juice, so you can eat them on the go. There’s nowhere to wash an apple in most convenience stores, and oranges are more likely to get juice on your clothes or car seats, have a harder peel to remove and neatly dispose of, and may have seeds.