CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Banana is a long curved fruit which grows in clusters and has soft pulpy flesh and yellow skin when ripe.There are about 1000 varieties of bananas in the world. Banana is an edible fruit botanically a berry, produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries bananas used for cooking may be called plantains. The fruit is variable in size, colour and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich starch covered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe, (Mwan et al., 2007).
In the developing world, banana is a major staple crop of considerable importance. Most producers and consumer of banana determines the quality of the banana by the colour of the peels. The colour of the fruit could serve as an indication of the state of deterioration, disease and/or confirmation (Crane et al., 2005).
1.1 Background of the study
In 2013, Canadians spent 875 billion on food, the largest share was spent on fruit production.
The global fruit processing industry has experienced consistent increased demand over the last five years, for processed fruit and fruit products and consumer spending has increased. Demand has grown particularly faster in developing economies as industrial growth has translated into greater urbanization, higher percental income and expansion in the size of the middle class has grown it has demanded larger quantities of higher quality more diverse food. Increase consumption of fruits can be attributed to more household becoming health centered (CSA, 2004).
Microorganisms, natural disaster such as earthquakes etc. has cause a substantial damage to fruit production and has naturally affected the Global fruit production.
The quantity of bananas product in Nigeria has not been estimated. However it is known to be produced in varying amount within the following states: Abia, Awkaibom, Anambra, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Enugu, Kaduna and Ondo (FOS, 2015)
Because of the massive production of banana fruit and poor storage and handling process, leads to spillage of banana fruit during the post-harvest period, (CSA, 2004).