A Costco customer is crying foul after she says she purchased bananas that appear to be “fake.”
TikTok user @hunterkiotv, who is a gaming streamer, posted the video of the suspicious bananas. It has amassed more than 5.3 million views as of Wednesday morning. “So my mother was showing me that she opened the banana, that she thinks these are not real bananas,” he says in the video.
In the video, @hunterkiotv’s mom peels the fruit, which appears at face value to be just like any other banana. “But when she opens it, and she breaks it in half, it gets very tough and doesn’t really break,” he explains. “And when it pulls, it’s, like, it’s glue. It’s very tight and doughy.”
The camera shows @hunterkiotv’s mother demonstrating the banana’s strange qualities. “I’ve never, ever seen a banana like that. I don’t know if it’s just our banana, or if it’s this brand from Costco. But at the end of the day, it looks very, very fake and Play-Doh-y. Does anybody know what happened?” he asks.
This isn’t the first time TikTok users have pointed out food products with inconsistent qualities. Recently, a Walmart shopper expressed disgust at “stringy” chicken, which viewers blamed on genetic modification. And that was after two separate incidents of non-melting ice cream.
Customer complaints about Costco bananas are not uncommon. In this thread on a Canadian shopping deal forum, users complain about the quality of bananas and mangos, particularly with regard to an inconsistency in ripeness. One user attributed that to Costco perhaps freezing and then defrosting these particular fruits in the shipping process. Refrigerating bananas interrupts the ripening process, which could potentially explain the inconsistency in texture.
@hunterkiotv Does your BANNA do this? #fyp #weird ♬ original sound – HUNTERKIO
The video has racked up more than 27,000 comments in a day. Some users blamed genetic modification for the phenomenon.
One user wrote, “Genetically modified plantain and banana mix.Lab fruit.” Other users replied that regular grocery store bananas are also genetically modified, but this is technically not true. Your average grocery store banana is actually a clone—and not genetically modified at all.
However, Australian researchers are currently working on the first genetically modified banana. It is not yet for sale on store shelves. They are essentially a backup plan if the bananas we currently eat are destroyed by a deadly fungus.
Plenty of users found humor in the situation. “That’s not a banana. That’s a bendana,” one user wrote. Another quipped, “When in doubt throw it out.”
The Daily Dot reached out to @hunterkiotv via TikTok direct message and Costco via media contact form for comment.
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