TOKYO: According to a report by Kyodo News agency, a fruit wholesaler in Miyazaki prefecture has started selling “musical bananas”.

Before you start thinking that the Japanese have somehow managed to come up with an edible mp3 player that grows on trees, let’s get things straightened out. The “musical bananas” do not play music as you eat them. In fact, they do not play music at all.

The reason they’re called “musical bananas” is because the bananas (which were imported from the Philippines) were exposed to classical music composed by Mozart while they ripened.

Speakers were installed in six Dutch-made ripening chambers that were built this year. Mozarts’s music was then broadcast into the chambers using these speakers 24 hours a day for 5 days while the bananas inside ripened.

Although the process is not backed by scientific data, the company hopes that the process would add value to the bananas by somehow passing on the sense of comfort provided by classical music to those who consumed them.

The association which recommended this procedure cited previous experiments where musical compositions by Mozart were broadcast in workplace environments to raise productivity, as well as other similar experiments with diary cows and chickens.

A 500g bag of “musical bananas” is priced at 190 yen (around RM7.00) and will be available in supermarkets in Miyazaki and Kashima as well as online.