Fruit Company Plays Mozart to Bananas

The Toyoka Chuo Seika fruit company plays Mozart to their ripening bananas in the belief that it makes the fruit sweeter. From the article: "Favored works include Mozart's String Quartet 17 and Piano Concerto 5 in D major, reports the Japan Times. Company spokesman Isamu Okuda said he believes it makes the bananas, which are imported from the Philippines, sweeter. The paper adds that bananas are just one of a wide variety of food and beverages, including soy sauce, udon noodles, miso and even sake, which have been enjoying exposure to classical music in Japan."

Publicity stunts are getting stranger...

[Roobles]

The idea of playing music to plants is pretty far out there for me. But I can begin to go with it. After all, there have been a few studies that suggest plants might have more perception [bbc.co.uk] and intelligence [oxfordjournals.org] than most would give them credit for. Who is to say for sure that a plant couldn't somehow perceive a sound vibration and respond to it in some manner? Very far fetched, but I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility.

But playing music to fruit? That doesn't make sense to me in anyway. Ripe

Re:

[sjames]

On the bright side at least it won't create a superbug or cause 4 year olds to enter puberty.

Re:

[H0p313ss]

But playing music to fruit? That doesn't make sense to me in anyway. Ripening is a well understood chemical process [wikipedia.org]. One that I don't believe the fruit itself has any control over once it has been plucked from the tree. This is just a publicity stunt/marketing gimmick that worked well enough to land it a news article. Beyond that, it's just a waste of time and energy.

True, but as a consumer I'd buy from them just because they are cool to even try it.

Defending yourself...

[xhamulnazgul]

from a man armed with a piece of fresh fruit.