In years before this decade, the banana market has been dominated mainly by the three large multinationals, which are Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita. This was mainly because so much coordination is required from plantation to packaging to transport to retailing that large vertically integrated firms are favored. These corporations enjoy economies of scale. Recently though, the big three have found more competition than to their liking.

In the 1990s, the proportion of bananas sold by the large multinational firms has gone down while the proportion of bananas sold by independents and locals has gone up. Companies have found that once the millions of dollars necessary to get a foothold in the industry are invested, then it is not impossible to compete with the large multinationals. While this is a significant barrier to entry, it is not impassible, and competition is possible. This is helped by the fact that there is little to no brand name recognition in this industry, although Chiquita bananas may sometimes command a ten percent markup. Moreover, this deconcentration has caused the large firms to not be able to exert the same amount of control now as they did in the 1960s. However, in comparison to other commodities, the banana industry is still dominated by vertically integrated firms. These firms enjoy economies of scale, many differentiated sources of the fruit, and have the ability to move different volumes of the fruit to make up for natural disasters and disease. Also, to a lesser extend, these companies can remove bananas from the market when there is an oversupply.