Amazon is disrupting Seattle's banana economy

Amazon's free banana stand has split opinions. Photo / 123RF

There's always money in the banana stand.

Except in Seattle, where online retail giant Amazon has been giving them away for free outside its headquarters - upsetting some in the local community, who claim local grocers are now stocking fewer bananas as a result.

Amazon opened its first banana stand, staffed by "Banistas", in December 2015 after chief executive Jeff Bezos decided that the company should offer healthy, eco-friendly snacks to both staff and people in the local area as a public service.

A second stand opened a year later. The Banistas hand out about 8000 bananas a day. In April alone, the company handed out 180,000, with 1.7 million handed out in total so far. "Someone told me last night they could always tell an Amazon employee because they always have a banana when they're walking around in Seattle," John Schoettler, Amazon's vice president of real estate and facilities, told The Wall Street Journal.

The paper reports while some workers are happy with the free fruit, others say it is hard to find bananas in stock at nearby grocery stores, and eateries in the area surrounding the company's sprawling campus have had to adapt.

One vegetarian cafe cut back its purchases of bananas, which it had offered sliced as a yogurt topping, instead moving to a banana-based vegan eggnog and chocolate banana drink.

"People have bananas on the brain," cafe manager Hadley Jouflas told the Journal.

Another local eatery complained that customers were leaving banana peels lying around after their lunch, while the manager of a juice bar said people often asked jokingly if the bananas were free. "Unfortunately, we cannot give those out as freebies," Carly Knox said.