FUKUOKA, Dec. 13 – Fukuoka Daido Seika, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler at the Fukuoka City Central Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market, demonstrated how to make a “Jewel Cut Fruit Plate,” in which fruits are beautifully cut and arranged like jewels. Japan’s agricultural cooperatives group (JA Group) prepared fruits in season from all over Japan for the event that took place at the market on December 13. The company gave the fruit arrangements to children in the hospital and their families. It also hopes the event will help increase consumers’ spending on domestically-grown fruits.

The company used fruits sent from several prefectures, such as apples from Aomori and Nagano, persimmons from Fukuoka, strawberries from Kumamoto, and citrus fruits from Oita. It made 140 sets of Christmas-themed fruit plates and a platter
and delivered them to Fukuoka Children’s Hospital with notes showing where all these fruits are grown.

“Above all, I hope that children and their families feel happy from looking at them,” said Nanako Waniguchi from the company’s sales promotion department. “We’ll be happy also if it could become an opportunity for them to know and eat more domestically-grown seasonal fruits,” she added.

Ready-to-eat cut fruits are popular at the fruit sections of department stores and volume retailers. Fukuoka Daido Seika has been providing lectures on beautiful fruit-cutting skills to intermediate wholesalers and retailers to suggest how to sell more domestic fruits and boost consumption.

Source: http://english.agrinews.co.jp/?p=10361