Holiday scheduling was to blame for a banana shortage at some supermarkets, a representative for an wholesaler said yesterday. Peter Tobin, the president and general manager of the consumer products division at Butterfield & Vallis, said that the firm had not imported any bananas last week. He explained: “We couldn’t arrange for them to be inspected in the United States on time because of the Christmas break.”The company supplies bananas to the Lindo’s Group of supermarkets and Miles Market. Mr Tobin added that MarketPlace, which is the only other company that imports bananas, may have had the fruit at some locations last week. Calls to a MarketPlace representative were not retuned by press time. Mr Tobin said that Butterfield & Vallis normally imports bananas every week and that the firm’s last shipment happened before Christmas.Mr Tobin said that “a number” of bananas from that shipment had been confiscated because of mealybugs, but that those seizures were not to blame for the shortage last week. He said that the supermarkets the firm supplies should see shelves restocked as normal next week, provided inspections on Monday go as planned. Mr Tobin explained stores should get bananas on Tuesday. Last month a spokesman for Butterfield & Vallis blamed banana price hikes on the “increasing cost of fruit inspection by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources”. The spokesman said that a load of bananas brought here in November had been “heavily impacted” by mealybugs and that the DENR had “mandated rigorous inspections” since. He added that inspections were done in addition to a DENR-mandated inspection by the US Department of Agriculture.The knock-on effect was that customers paid higher prices for bananas, which arrived in store later and had a shortened shelf life.He added: “We do not want to see the market without bananas, however we felt it important that the public understand the nature of recent price increases.”