Just look at this banana vending machine in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Just look at it.

Shibuya Banana Vending Machine (Thanks, Brent!)

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MORE: bananas • Gadgets • just look at it • Tokyo • wide

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Yeah, but this is where they come from http://www.pedrochurros.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/3954_c85d.gif
http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

Single banana from Japanese vending machine: ¥130 ($1.47 in US Dollars)
Single banana at Trader Joe’s: 19¢
- http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
  
  Is that Trader Joes in Japan? If not, then the price difference is meaningless. I’d like to know what the regular price of a banana is in Japan.
  - echolocate chocolate
    
    Very roughly twice as expensive. { Fruit is expensive } x { exchange rate to US$ sucks }.
    
    Yes, individual servings of fresh fruit in a vending machine are crazy expensive, fancy that.
    - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
      
      Are these coming from Ecuador (assumption) through the US, to Japan, or straight from Ecuador (or wherever) to Japan?
      - echolocate chocolate
        
        According to this page on the Dole website: http://dole.co.jp/products/fruits/banana01.html (just look at it), they mostly come from the Philippines. I assume they go to Japan directly cause bananas are pretty common in the supermarkets.
- nixiebunny
  
  But does your Trader Joe’s banana have a plastic wrapper with groovy Japanese writing? No.
- Preston Sturges
  
  Well it depends on location. Yes, you can spend some ungodly sum for a watermelon (like $100) if you want to buy one on the mezzanine of the Tokyo subway station.
  - echolocate chocolate
    
    Or at a local supermarket hundreds of km from Tokyo. Fruit are given as gifts in Japan and the very best, most attractive ones attract a huge premium. Fruit is expensive anyway because farm land is at a premium and the farmers in Japan have huge political clout so imports are expensive.
    
    Also: I bet you can find a watermelon for more like $500 in one of the upmarket shopping areas in Tokyo.
    
    —
    
    Edit to add: here is a $4000 watermelon: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/22/japanese-watermelon-auctions-for-4000-consider-that-a-bargain/
- duncancreamer
  
  Single banana from Japanese vending machine: ¥130 ($1.47 in US Dollars)
  Single banana in Costa Rica: 0$ (US in US Dollars)
http://www.facebook.com/julian.rita Julian Santa Rita

I think the wrapper is hilarious…since they come prepackaged in a banana peel already…
- Preston Sturges
  
  Well there has to be a package so they can print the word “Banana” on it so consumers can be confident that this is a banana and not some strange novelty product, and then there is also a tiny picture of a banana, presumably for people who can’t read the label or see the banana through the bag.
http://www.tavie.com Tavie

Don’t ever stop, you crazy, magnificent fool.
http://www.tavie.com Tavie

Seriously, I laugh every time.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski

It’s kind of Dole to add the plastic bagging to bananas that Mother Nature couldn’t.
Warren_Terra

It’s really the plastic wrap that sells it – the edible part of the banana being after all already encased in a durable skin. Are they going to branch out and add individually plastic-wrapped oranges, too?
- http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
  
  Yes, and just wait ’til you see what they do to nuts.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  As I understand it, the Japanese are really into packaging. A combination of concerns about hygiene and traditional presentation culture.
  
  I recall reading that simple, convenience-store purchases were often carefully wrapped and bagged in front of the customer, even if the item was due for immediate consumption.
  - echolocate chocolate
    
    Maybe a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Certainly the packaging culture is so ingrained that even when you ask for the item without a bag, they will stick a small sticker on the item to indicate that it has been purchased.
    
    And everything is packaged in individual servings–no giant bags of snacks. The first time I saw a box of 12 individually-wrapped McVities Digestive Biscuits at the supermarket, it blew my mind.
    - jhoosier
      
      A bag of individually wrapped cashew nuts. Just picture it. I had a photo at home, not sure if it’s still there.
      
      Some places are trying to get out of the packaging obsession. Lots of people have eco-bags (bring-your-own canvas/nylon bags), and you can get a small ( 2yen) discount if you don’t use any bags. But if you go to a fast-food restaurant and order a value meal, you’re going to get the hamburger in a paper bag, the fries in another paper bag, your drink in a paper bag with a cardboard insert to prevent it from tipping over, and then each of those bags placed in a large plastic bag. It’s ridiculous.
      - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
        
        Ya know this doesn’t make feel so bad when I order something and it’s a box within a box.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Kind of odd to have a single-product machine.

Although, come to think of it, there was an apple vending machine in my high school. I think they were pretty common at one time.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  At one of the highschools i visited there was a candy apple machine that ‘made’ them (punches stick in apple, applies sheet of ‘caramel’ to apple, heats it to melt it). It was broken when I saw it but someone explained it to me and I wondered if some dude comes by regularly to replace the apples and why wasn’t there an option just to sell the apples by themselves. I could of used them in my painting class when we needed to do a still-life, the cafeteria only had bananas.
http://segonmedia.com/ Seg

Is “Just look at it!” a new Boing Boing series?

Serious question!
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000450834473 Max Jeffcott
  
  Posting pictures of bananas captioned “just look at it!” is a fairly long-running gag. It’s been at least a couple years now.
  - Festus
    
    Newbie/lurker here: Please, can someone explain the history of the banana gag? I luff it.
http://thisisonlya.blogspot.com robcat2075

It’s a great banana until it drops five feet to the bottom of the machine .
- Warren_Terra
  
  What you can’t see in this picture is that the bananas on the next row down are priced 20 yen more.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  Each bag has a small parachute which deploys as soon as downward velocity is detected.
- Boundegar
  
  …and shatters.
- jhoosier
  
  It probably has a plate that lifts up to the level of the banana, which is then pushed onto the plate and lowered down. They wouldn’t do it any other way.
http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC

ちょうどそれを見て！
- oasisob1
  
  Yes, just look at it.
- Dave Jenkins
  
  見てごらん！ is probably a better translation, invoking the “behold!” element of the statement, IMHO.
  - http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC
    
    Yeah, I slipped up, there.
Roose_Bolton

This banana series is gonna pay off in a big way, I can feels it.
- http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce
  
  It’s got appeal!
  - Roose_Bolton
    
    Ugghh….I sure stepped in that one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Actually, this is machine dispenses cleverly disguised sex toys. A big favorite at Tokyo metro area “love hotels.”

Just look away . . .
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawn-Goldwater/806673997 Shawn Goldwater

I live in Montreal and have noticed, for the first time, bunches of bananas in plastic bags in some supermarkets. I assumed it was a spoilage thing as I read somewhere — maybe here — that plastic wrapping fruits and veggies is actually “greener” in that they last longer?
- sam1148
  
  Most time when produce is pre-packaged, It’s for things like grapes where they can fall on the floor and people slip on them.
  And when they want to speed checkout with pre weighed packages for self-checkout.
  Quite a few discount stores only sell things like bell peppers, bananas in unit priced bag with scanner codes.
Lurking_Grue

There is always money in the banana stand.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  The one in Afghanistan?
DevinC

I cannot look at this banana vending machine. I”m too busy looking at the ground so I don’t step in frozen banana shards and at the rooftops for banana snipers.
sam1148

Now I think off it, the packaging probably helps keep the machine clean more so than the banana.
I’d bet after a few months of those metal spirals rubbing on the banana they’d probably attract flies–plus they look they’d be a PITA to clean.
http://twitter.com/catolster Kevin Catolster

Wouldn’t this lead to every banana coming out bruised?
- http://twitter.com/catolster Kevin Catolster
  
  I mean, maybe not the bottom-row bananas, but definitely the ones on the top row.
- nixiebunny
  
  Bananas get bruised easily, but the bruise takes time to develop.
  
  Moral: Eat your vending-machine banana RIGHT NOW!
http://twitter.com/sloopy312 sloopy312

i am not eating anything that doesn’t come in a wrapper in a wrapper
tacochuck

Odd that every one is the last item of the row.
jhoosier

Even weirder than banana vending machine is the fresh flower vending machine.

Beer vending machines are a godsend, however.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  There’s a flower vending machine at the Vegas airport. Make of that what you will.
http://greggman.com greggman

I don’t get why this is interesting. I’ve seen bananas in vending machines all over the world. Here’s an example:

http://www.idealcoffee.com/images/vending_snacks_rotating_big.jpg

and the concept goes back until at least the 1920s
http://www.profimedia.si/picture/1920s-1930s-1940s-1950s-series-automat-cafeteria/0120465744/

Individually wrapped bananas in the US/UK

http://www.arktimes.com/EatArkansas/archives/2011/03/10/should-you-wrap-your-banana

and i’ve certainly seen them in other countries as well

I guess because it’s “in Japan” it somehow becomes exotic/cool even when it’s not?
- Preston Sturges
  
  Regrettably the last Automat closed in 1991
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/nyregion/last-automat-closes-its-era-long-gone.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm
http://twitter.com/rogerjva Roger Vaillancourt

Doesn’t the bag trap the ethylene and make the banana ripen crazy-fast?
DreamboatSkanky

For the sniper on the go!
sigdrifa

Goes right along with DelMonte’s individually packaged banana :)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-7-2011/intro—pantry-of-shame