What is the largest number of bananas that can be delivered to the market?

Question

The owner of a banana plantation has a camel. He wants to transport his 3000 bananas to the market, which is located after the desert. The distance between his banana plantation and the market is about 1000 kilometer. So he decided to take his camel to carry the bananas. The camel can carry at the maximum of 1000 bananas at a time, and it eats one banana for every kilometer it travels.

What is the largest number of bananas that can be delivered to the market?

Answer 1

The best way to reduce the number of bananas wasted us to somehow shift all 3000 bananas with us as we move forward, even if it means taking multiple short trips of 1km back and forth.

So until the number of bananas reach 2000 the camel has to take 3 trips per km consuming 5 bananas for the effort. This means just after 200km 5×200 = 1000 bananas are done for.

Now it has to take only 2 such trips until the number of bananas fall to 1000. This happens after 333km further consuming 3 bananas per km ie., 3×333 = 999 bananas more
Consumed leaving 1001 bananas for the final stretch. After eating a banana it will take the rest (1000) further 467 km (1000 - (200 + 333))km eating 466 more on the way to market. So at the market 1000 - 466 = 534 bananas are left which is the maximum possible number of bananas that can be delivered in the situation.