01
Colombia · Urabá · Magdalena
The cooperative
Turbana is not an ordinary brand, but an association of thousands of small banana farmers in northern Colombia. What they harvest, we ship to Europe every week.
From Colombia, via Antwerpen, to Amsterdam
The plantain.
From the bunch to your counter.
The plantain sitting in an Amsterdam kitchen cupboard has an ocean and the port of Antwerpen behind it. And the hands of thousands of Colombian farmers and seventy years of Karsten.
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On the tree
Ripe on the bunch
A good banana ripens best on the plant. There it builds up sugar, there it gets the skin that survives the journey. That's why we harvest as late as the transport allows.
03
The harvest
A bunch per cut
With a single machete stroke the fifty-kilo bunch falls softly into the harvester's arms. No bruising, no rough handling, because a banana remembers every knock.
04
The packing shed
Into a box that can take the sea
Before the box closes: one final inspection. Then the brand on the box, a pallet code and a cooling temperature the banana rests on peacefully.
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The crossing
An ocean in a reefer container
In a conditioned container at 13 degrees the bunch crosses the ocean. What left green stays green, all the way to the port of Antwerpen.
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Port of Antwerpen
Every week we collect them
In Antwerpen the boat arrives. Every week we drive there, load the Turbanas into our own refrigerated vans and bring them by road to Amsterdam.
07
Our ripening cell
From green to gold
At the Food Center we do what can't be done in transit: let the banana ripen quietly in our own cells. A few days later it is golden yellow and ready for the counter.
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At the market
On your counter
From a cooperative in Colombia to the market on the Albert Cuyp: one chain, from beginning to end in our own hands.