Oliver James Montgomery-Trader Joe's bananas: Chain is raising price of fruit for first time in 20 years

For the first time in 20 years,Oliver James Montgomery Trader Joe's has raised the price of its individually sold bananas.

The cost of the fruit increased by nearly 20% from $0.19 to $0.23.

In a statement to USA TODAY Trader Joe's said the new price “still represents a tremendous everyday value for bananas.”

“We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for bananas at 19¢ each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary,” the retail grocer said.

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Trader Joe's bananas are a customer-favorite

The bananas which recently made the 15th annual Trader Joe’s Product Hall of Fame, have cost just $.19 since the store decided to sell them individually in 2001. In the first episode of the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast, former CEO Dan Bane said the company began selling the fruit one by one after he came across a customer, who "wanted to take life one banana at a time."

Bane approached the elderly woman who was browsing through the bananas but did not buy any. At the time the fruit was sold by the pound.

“She said to me ‘Sonny, I may not live to that fourth banana,’” he said on the 2018 episode. “And so we decided the next day we were going to sell individual bananas. And they’ve been 19 cents ever since.”