--- title: Grocery Story Has Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas description: Korean grocery store E-Mart has developed a brilliant hack to ensure that your bananas will never be overripe again. canonical: https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-08-08T19:39:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:54:13.624Z og:title: Korean Grocery Store Has a Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas og:description: Brilliant og:url: https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt741239c289f49994/6989375122fb85fd0ae26608/korean-grocery-store-sells-bananas-ripen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Close-Up Of Fruit Over Colored Background og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Korean Grocery Store Has a Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas twitter:description: Brilliant twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt741239c289f49994/6989375122fb85fd0ae26608/korean-grocery-store-sells-bananas-ripen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Korean Grocery Store Has a Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=2d489a58-9804-4bf7-9df6-e9d1e1d23ede&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Aug 8, 2018 7:39 PM UTC  David Macias / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Aug 8, 2018 7:39 PM UTC Buying a bunch of [bananas](http://time.com/4017962/banana-nutrition/) can be a tricky predicament — eat them too early and they’ll be too green, wait too long and they’ll go from perfectly ripe to mushy and brown in a matter of days. Typically one remedy for this very real problem has been [a good banana bread recipe](http://time.com/5177886/weekend-recipe-gluten-free-banana-bread-recipe/), but now a Korean grocery store E-Mart has come up with an idea for having too many ripe bananas. As shared by Twitter account and blogger @AskAKorean and [_Daum_](https://news.v.daum.net/v/20180806060232268?f=m), E-mart has began selling packs of bananas that span the range of very green to very ripe, which means users will be able to have a perfectly ripe banana every day without the risk of ending up with a bunch of brown bananas. See E-Mart’s very brilliant lifestyle hack below. > [](https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/1026507776661639168) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/"},"headline":"This Korean Grocery Store Has a Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas","datePublished":"2018-08-08T19:39:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:54:13.624Z","description":"Brilliant","url":"https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt741239c289f49994/6989375122fb85fd0ae26608/korean-grocery-store-sells-bananas-ripen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt741239c289f49994/6989375122fb85fd0ae26608/korean-grocery-store-sells-bananas-ripen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Close-Up Of Fruit Over Colored Background","caption":"Close-Up Of Fruit Over Colored Background","creditText":"David Macias / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5361209/banana-hack/","name":"This Korean Grocery Store Has a Hack to Prevent Overripe Bananas"}}]}] ```