Yes, all bananas are picked green. And I had an interesting chat with a logistics guy from Chiquita
who said:
Ethylene is the ripening agent for bananas. Picked green, eventually they'll ripen on their own, but many producers jump start the ripening with ethylene. It's produced naturally in some fruits, or artificially. If you put green bananas in a bag with apples (a very high producer of ethelene), the bananas will begin to ripen. It's the biological kick-start. If you want to slow the ripening, stick bananas in the refrigerator.
Attached is an interesting chart he had on his iPhone, noting production and sensitivity levels of selected fresh produce, flowers and nursery stock. (He told a story that once he tried to ship a high ethelene producing fruit and bananas on the same truck and caught holy hell!)
http://ethylenecontrol.com/about.html#How
who said:
Ethylene is the ripening agent for bananas. Picked green, eventually they'll ripen on their own, but many producers jump start the ripening with ethylene. It's produced naturally in some fruits, or artificially. If you put green bananas in a bag with apples (a very high producer of ethelene), the bananas will begin to ripen. It's the biological kick-start. If you want to slow the ripening, stick bananas in the refrigerator.
Attached is an interesting chart he had on his iPhone, noting production and sensitivity levels of selected fresh produce, flowers and nursery stock. (He told a story that once he tried to ship a high ethelene producing fruit and bananas on the same truck and caught holy hell!)
http://ethylenecontrol.com/about.html#How