The activity being described in this question is part of the product screening. This is a step in the product development process where different product designs are evaluated and analyzed according to the company's goals and criteria and those that meet all of their requirements are chosen for production while the ones that don't are scraped. This is what Mathew is doing by choosing the two product proposals that meet the companies requirements and which they believe will be good to pursue.
Germany does not have a comparative advantage, which is the ability to do something better or more efficiently that someone else. Even though they are producing bananas, the industry is artificially supported by the tax incentives and not because Germany is an amazing banana-growing location.
The consequences for the economy are lost opportunity costs that could be producing things where they <em>do </em>have a comparative advantage (cars, for example). Another consequence is that the tax money could be better spent on other things.