Dole Banana has marked its history as a pioneer of the global banana industry by celebrating its 125th anniversary.
Dole’s celebrations coincided with the annual Minions fan carnival and as the chief sponsor of the 2024 Banana Day, Dole jointly organised a 10,000-person birthday party at one of the nation’s top landmarks, West Lake in Hangzhou.
The event saw special guests from Universal and Hanglian – as well as many fans who are in love with Dole’s bananas – come to experience the party and celebrate the birthday of Minions’ favourite banana!
A sea of Dole bananas on the screen, Dole Banana’s 125th anniversary birthday party is on
The Dole Banana 125th anniversary party officially kicked off with a flash mob dance, led by more than ten Minions dancers, and the audience of the bazaar turned their attention to the main stage in anticipation of the party’s surprises.
As the main character of the birthday party, Dole Banana is loved for its sweet and sticky taste, rich energy and nutrition, as well as consistent high quality. The exciting history behind its 125 years of history was explained by Wang Na, Dole’s marketing director, in a wonderful and vivid manner. From the brand’s origins in 1899, to its cultivation and development, to its global impact, Dole has become synonymous with bananas.
In China, Dole bananas have become a household name. Dole bananas can be found in major supermarkets across China, including Sam’s, Hema, Ole, Walmart, RT-Mart, and so on.
The highlight of the celebration Li Yang, director of sales marketing of Dole China; Wang Na, marketing director of Dole China; Richard Li, director of consumer goods and promotions, brand development department of Globe Greater China; and Tang Haili, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Lianhua Huashang Group, come to the stage and cut a huge 125th anniversary cake hand-in-hand.
As the cake was cut on stage the crowd sang Happy Birthday and visitors dressed up as bananas and waved light signs to form a sea of Dole bananas, commemorating the 125th anniversary of Dole’s leadership in high-quality bananas.
Dole celebrates Banana Day, drawing a crowd on Hangzhou’s most trendy pedestrian street!
The large birthday cake-shaped Dole pop-up booth in Hangzhou attracted countless fans. The booth was filled with mouth-watering banana elements and became one of the most popular spots of the bazaar.
The Dole pop up booth also featured an exclusive banana photo studio, giving everyone who loves Dole and wants to celebrate Dole Bananas a chance to leave a sweet moment. The scene was filled with fans dressed in various banana costumes, who lined up in front of the Dole flash booth to participate in the event. Dole also prepared a wealth of customised peripheral giveaways encouraging visitors to sow joy and share friendship.
Dole Banana’s limited edition Sweetio banana launched, a anniversary and Despicable Me 4 crossover!
The long-awaited Despicable Me 4, the latest movie in the Minion series will be released in 2024. As one of the world’s best-known IPs, the Minions series is the highest-grossing animated series in the world, with more than US$3.7bn at the global box office. The cute and mischievous Minions image is deeply rooted in people’s hearts and loved by families from all over the world.
Everyone who has seen the Minions series of movies knows that the Minions’ favourite food is bananas, which is one of Dole’s star products. In this new movie, mega Minions with superpowers appear for the first time. When the mega Minions meet Dole’s ‘super power’ bananas, they will burst out with powerful joyful energy. The limited edition super sweet banana will be available soon.
As a century-old international fruit brand and a leader in the fruit industry, Dole’s banana business dates back as far as 1899. More than 50 years ago, Dole started sowing 176,000 selected giant Cavendish banana seeds on 73 acres of land in the Philippines in order to provide fresher bananas to Asian consumers, making it the first banana nursery programme in the country.
Dole’s banana farms are located in Mindanao, the “home of the banana” in the Philippines. Mindanao has a monsoon tropical rainforest climate, which is ideal for growing bananas. Dole Sweetio Banana grows in Dole’s upland farms in the Philippines, where the average temperature throughout the year is around 23℃, which is lower than the average temperature in the lowland farms.
The special climate makes the growth cycle of Dole’s super sweet bananas longer than that of Dole lowland bananas by about 90 days. Each Super Sweet Banana has gone through about 365 days of growth and accumulation of sugar to become the soft and tasty Dole Sweetio Banana.
Dole joins hands with Minions to deliver sunshine, happiness and excellent quality
As a fruit and vegetable brand with a history of 173 years, Dole has a sales network in more than 90 countries around the world, and has its own farms in many countries, with rich experience in fruit and vegetable planting, processing and cultivation promotion.
Dole entered China in 1998, and its star products in China include super sweet plantain, golden pineapple, non-GMO papaya and avocado. These come from Dole’s farms of more than 600,000 acres in the Philippines and are carefully cultivated by tens of thousands of fruit farmers.
Dole China supplies more than 90 kinds of fruit and vegetable products from 19 countries throughout the year. It has 12 modern processing and distribution centres across several cities in mainland China, equipped with advanced equipment such as pre-cooled warehouses and computer-controlled processing warehouses to ensure that consumers are provided with high-quality fruits and vegetables through scientific control.
In June 2022, Dole and Universal Pictures reached an IP license cooperation and Dole became the official fruit and vegetable partner of Minions. This was the first time Minions cooperated with a famous banana brand in China, and Minions finally found their favourite banana. In the same year, Dole launched a series of Minions IP fruit products to further enhance the consumer experience. Dole will continue to work closely with Minions to pass on the concept of sunny and happy high-quality life.
