This film is part of Free

Geest Bananas

New processing plant in Heathfield sees careful handling of bananas destined for consumers.

Current affairs 1963 3 mins

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Overview

Geest bananas are unloaded from a train cabin onto a conveyor belt to be transported into a holding plant and ripening warehouse in Heathfield, Newton Abbot. The bananas are then sorted packaged and sent to grocers and supermarkets. There are various types of banana but the Cavendish (the family name of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire) gained popularity in the 1950s and accounts for the vast majority of imported bananas into the UK.

The Geest horticultural business was formed by the Dutch Van Geest brothers in Spalding. In the 1930s they specialised in selling flower bulbs and then their first shipment of bananas came to London in 1953. In the 1960s a network of ripening centres opened in Heathfield, Devon, Ardrie in Scotland, St Helens in Lancashire, Spalding in Lincolnshire, Stansted in Essex and other plants in Wiltshire. Geest Bananas was sold jointly to the Windward Island Banana Development and Exporting Company Ltd and Fyffes Group Ltd in 1996. Officially ceasing to sell bananas in the UK in 2001, Geest Bananas Ltd changed to Geest Line Ltd in 2008 and concentrated only on its cargo transport service.