Gene editing has long been touted as one of the next frontiers of food production, but the future is finally here. Tropic, a biotech firm based near Norwich, is launching a revolutionary product this month: the non-browning banana. After 10,000 years of humans enduring bananas that go brown, our ingenuity has finally provided a solution.
The new variant of the fruit has taken years of research. Using a proprietary technique called Geigs (gene editing induced gene silencing), similar to Crispr (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), Tropic has modified the Cavendish banana – the variety that comprises 99 per cent of all the bananas eaten in the UK – so its flesh does not go brown. Until now, bananas have been unwelcome guests in a fruit salad, becoming unappealingly sludgy within minutes of being undressed.
“They have the same taste, smell, sweetness profile, the same everything, except that the flesh doesn’t go brown as quickly, which means you can add them to fruit salads and cut-fruit products, opening up a huge new market,” says Gilad Gershon, Tropic’s co-founder. “This is very exciting to the industry as, historically, you wouldn’t include bananas, which are very popular fruits, in a prepared fruit selection in a store, because they go brown too quickly.”
Browning is triggered by polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that catalyses the oxidation of certain compounds in the banana’s flesh. By “cutting out” the genes responsible for the enzyme, Tropic’s scientists have slowed the browning process. This gene editing is different from other forms of genetic modification, in which new genes are introduced from other species, and typically comes with fewer regulatory obstacles.
Tropic says the change only affects the colour, it won’t change the sweetness. Your banana will still get old, it just won’t get so brown. Tropic predicts the non-browning banana – which has been approved in the United States and Canada, and it hopes soon in the UK – will reduce food waste and save millions of tons in carbon emissions.
Gene editing has long been touted as one of the next frontiers of food production, but the future is finally here. Tropic, a biotech firm based near Norwich, is launching a revolutionary product this month: the non-browning banana. After 10,000 years of humans enduring bananas that go brown, our ingenuity has finally provided a solution.
The new variant of the fruit has taken years of research. Using a proprietary technique called Geigs (gene editing induced gene silencing), similar to Crispr (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), Tropic has modified the Cavendish banana – the variety that comprises 99 per cent of all the bananas eaten in the UK – so its flesh does not go brown. Until now, bananas have been unwelcome guests in a fruit salad, becoming unappealingly sludgy within minutes of being undressed.
“They have the same taste, smell, sweetness profile, the same everything, except that the flesh doesn’t go brown as quickly, which means you can add them to fruit salads and cut-fruit products, opening up a huge new market,” says Gilad Gershon, Tropic’s co-founder. “This is very exciting to the industry as, historically, you wouldn’t include bananas, which are very popular fruits, in a prepared fruit selection in a store, because they go brown too quickly.”
Browning is triggered by polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that catalyses the oxidation of certain compounds in the banana’s flesh. By “cutting out” the genes responsible for the enzyme, Tropic’s scientists have slowed the browning process. This gene editing is different from other forms of genetic modification, in which new genes are introduced from other species, and typically comes with fewer regulatory obstacles.
Tropic says the change only affects the colour, it won’t change the sweetness. Your banana will still get old, it just won’t get so brown. Tropic predicts the non-browning banana – which has been approved in the United States and Canada, and it hopes soon in the UK – will reduce food waste and save millions of tons in carbon emissions.