Scientific breakthrough could reduce food waste and make it easier to add the fruit to prepackaged food

It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past, with gene-edited bananas that keep their freshly peeled colour now one step closer to reaching British shoppers.

According to Tropic, the Norwich-based agricultural-biotechnology company that developed the fruit, the bananas have the same taste and texture but stay “fresh, yellow and appetising long after peeling and slicing”.