It’s a banana girl summer, but for cult-favorite soft serve brand Peel, bananas are always in season. While Jacquemus, Sabrina Carpenter’s Prada Beauty campaign, and Glossier x Magnolia have all recently leaned into the fruit’s playful appeal, Peel has made it the heart of its product year-round.

Plot twist: bananas aren’t just trending, they’re transformational. At Peel, they serve as the base for its soft serve. And that’s a big part of its appeal.

Peel is based in Miami and currently boasts three locations: its original outpost in Miami Shores, a truck in the buzzy Design District, and a newly opened location at Downtown’s Brightline Central Fare. The brand has already racked up a slew of cool collabs — with names like Crown Affair and Gucci — and a new spot is set to open later in 2025.

At the core of Peel’s mission? Making something beautiful out of “ugly” fruit. The soft serve is made with bruised or blemished bananas that would otherwise go to waste. Paired with coconut milk, the product is naturally vegan, dairy-free, and contains no added sugar (the browning of bananas is actually Mother Nature’s brown sugar). Toppings and flavor profiles are creative and often feature local ingredients like mango and lychee — always with a little twist.

Peel is proof that with a strong vision, a clever twist, and a sense of humor, a simple banana can serve as the base for a full-blown movement.

Founder Valeria Alvarez experienced the initial spark for the idea while traveling to Indonesia in 2016. At the time, becoming a food & beverage founder wasn’t on her bingo card.

It was during that Southeast Asia trip that Alvarez noticed the beauty — and lack of waste — in the way local vendors created smoothie bowls. “They were using what they had: bananas, mangoes, pineapple, dragonfruit,” she recalls. “And they made these stunning, vibrant bowls, topped with edible flowers. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” The experience planted a seed. When she returned home to Miami, the idea started to ripen.

At the time, Alvarez was working in tech and marketing, but the pull toward something more purpose-driven was undeniable. “I loved the creative side of what I was doing, but I wanted to build something real. Something I could feel.”

Her husband Marshall — now her cofounder — brought his chemistry and brewing background to the mix. Together, they began experimenting with fruit and ingredients, sourcing from local suppliers. That’s when they uncovered a striking inefficiency in the produce industry: bananas with minor imperfections were routinely discarded, despite being perfectly edible.

Rather than seeing waste, she saw opportunity. “Bananas have the best consistency — and people throw them out because they’re not aesthetically perfect? That made no sense.”

And just like that, Peel was born — built on a base of repurposed bananas, coconut milk, and zero added sugar.

At the heart of Peel’s story is the idea that imperfection can not only be beautiful, it can be delicious.

What started as a weekend activation at the Legion Park Farmers Market in 2019 quickly became something more. With simple, clean ingredients and an impactful mission, Peel was met with strong demand. But when COVID struck, the business paused for seven months.

As a result, Alvarez and her husband spent those months refining the recipe, sourcing a soft serve machine, and getting deeper into the food world — despite having no culinary background. “I’m not a chef,” she admits, smiling. “But I’m a builder. I wanted to build something joyful, and something I’d feel good feeding my own daughter one day.”

By 2020, Peel relaunched out of a truck. In 2023, they opened their first brick-and-mortar in Miami Shores — a tight-knit, family-centric neighborhood that served as the perfect fit.

If it sounds like Peel is simply a soft serve brand, think again. It’s also a space to connect. A ritual. A vibe.

The banana-shaped smile in the logo is no accident — it’s how Alvarez wants people to feel when they walk in and out.

“We’ve become that ‘third place’ for a lot of people. Not home, not work, but somewhere in between where they can hang out, meet friends, and feel good,” she says. “It’s not about sugar highs. It’s about joy.”

Fashion, beauty and lifestyle companies took note of Peel’s aesthetic — minimalist yet bright, cheeky but clean.

Since launching, Peel has collaborated with high-profile brands like Gucci, Crown Affair, Glow Recipe, Sweetgreen, and even the Miami Dolphins (on a corporate level, not with the NFL athletes). But Alvarez is quick to clarify: she doesn’t say ‘yes’ to everything.

“There’s intention behind every partnership,” she explains. “If we don’t align on values, it’s a ‘no’. I’m not just doing this for exposure. It has to feel like a natural extension of Peel’s mission.”

With Crown Affair, Peel used lemongrass — a nod to the clean beauty brand’s signature scent — to create a custom flavor. With Glow Recipe, they sourced rare cloudberry to match the brand’s new launch. For Gucci’s winter-themed Art Basel activation, Peel unveiled a black-wrapped truck and snickerdoodle flavor topped with coconut and cherry drizzle — all to match Gucci’s holiday palette.

Even the Miami Dolphins collaboration was a winner: they used spirulina to craft a soft serve flavor in the team’s iconic turquoise and orange.

Peel has also partnered with the likes of Shopbop (on several occasions), Miami-based Reserve padel club, and local coffee, matcha and taco brands — always with the same creative filter: Do the brand values align? Does it bring joy? Is it fun?

Because at the heart of Peel is Alvarez’s unofficial mantra: “The moment it stops being fun, it’s time to reconsider.”

Peel currently rescues about 40 pounds of bananas a week. The business also composts all organic waste through a local company, Compost for Life, and uses plastic-free, compostable packaging and wooden spoons.

But Alvarez is careful not to overhype the mission.

“I’m not here to save the world. But I do think sustainability can be fun. And it starts with small, mindful choices.”

She’s also open about the challenge ahead: how to maintain those sustainability standards as Peel expands. “As you scale, it actually becomes harder to be sustainable. But we’re committed to figuring it out.”

That ethos came to life with a crowd-sourced initiative last summer (and again this summer), inviting customers to trade four ripe mangoes for a free bowl: a community-powered fruit rescue that reinforced Peel’s mission with a playful twist.

“I didn’t plan to be the soft serve girl,” Alvarez says. “But it’s what lit me up. And that’s enough.”