Peel back a Shiawase banana skin to reveal the Japanese fruit's rich history

“We didn’t want to just come up with something extravagant because of its high quality," say ever inventive design studio Nendo of there new labelling idea for the Shiawase banana. "That would be totally inappropriate for an environmentally friendly banana. So we decided to steer clear of boxes or packing material."

The studio's chosen labels feature a double layer that mimics the skin of the fruit on top, and beneath an image of the flesh with a message etched into it. “Rather than just imposing some information about the banana we created an atmosphere where you are compelled to read the story behind it.”    

Unlike those yellow supermarket fruits you see hanging around, the Shiawase banana – meaning ‘happiness’ in Japanese due to its ability to make the growers happy – is a fancy premium fruit, grown organically in a Philippine national park on the island of Mindanao at altitudes of 1,000 metres or more. So for Unifrutti the aim was to embellish the award-winning banana without detracting from it's yellow beauty.  

The label design is accompanied by a paper bag for carrying your purchases home, and when the string handle is detached to access the fruit it unfolds into a banana leaf, with detailed information about the fruit on the reverse.