ふくしまプライド。
KV

Peaches

Why Fukushima peaches are so delicious
✓Peaches have always grown best in warm climates, and the basin climate in the northern part of Fukushima deliver with hot, sunny summers, making them the perfect location for most of the prefecture’s peach groves. The peaches there come out incredibly sweet and delicious.
✓Unlike many Japanese peach growers, Fukushima farmers don’t bag the fruit when it’s on the tree, exposing it to full sunshine for a more beautiful color and richer sweetness.
✓Local cultivation techniques passed down for generations have led to increasingly larger, better-tasting fruit.
✓There are many carefully selected, delicious peach varieties produced, including the leading variety Akatsuki, allowing you to enjoy tasty peaches from summer through fall.

Hatsuhime

Hatsuhime is an original Fukushima brand of peach. This early-ripening variety boasts large fruit with exceptional colour, sweetness, and flavour.

Fukuakari

Fukuakari is an original Fukushima brand of peach. It’s another large, early-ripening variety that’s known for its vivid colour, juiciness and exceptional sweetness.

Akatsuki

About half of the peaches grown in Fukushima are Akatsuki peaches, making them a signature cultivar of the prefecture. They have an outstanding flavour characterised by a high sugar content and a finely-textured pulp.

Madoka

Madoka peaches are large with a lovely color, intense sweetness, and firm pulp. This variety is shipped out after the Akatsuki peaches.

Kawanakajima Hakuto

Kawanakajima Hakuto is the second most common peach cultivar in Fukushima after Akatsuki peaches. It is large, with exceptional colouring and sweet, firm pulp. It is also known for excellent shelf life.

Yuzora

Yuzora peaches have slick pulp and a refined sweetness, giving them an exceptional flavour. They’re also beautiful to look at, making them an instant favourite with almost everyone who tries them.

Deep-diving the delicious flavour of peaches grown in a prefecture renowned as a “Fruit Kingdom”

Akatsuki peaches, the pride of people of Fukushima

Fukushima Prefecture is the second-largest producer of peaches in the country (2023 Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Statistics). Among its wide varieties, Akatsuki is the most widely cultivated peach in Japan, and more than half of them are grown in Fukushima. The Akatsuki is a nicely coloured, medium peach of consistent size, but its most beloved features are its finely textured pulp and sweet, juicy flavour. What most people don’t know, however, is that this market-dominating peach would not have even existed.

The year was 1952. The Akatsuki cultivar had just been born after a national research centre successfully hybridized Hakuto and Hakuho peaches. Starting in 1960, Fukushima and 11 other prefectures participated in a cultivation trial to determine the strain's adaptability. The peaches had excellent sugar content and pulp, but because they were so small, less than 200 grams each, the trials were discontinued after 11 years. However, Fukushima Prefecture, working together with a group of local farmers, continued experimenting on their own, eventually succeeding in making the peaches bigger through a process of trial and error. In 1979, the Akatsuki peach was finally registered as a brand. After 27 years since its development by the country and a trial cultivation period that lasted a remarkable 19 years, it finally came to light.
We spoke with the Director General of the Fruit Tree Research Centre at the Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre about this peach, which the people of Fukushima take pride in.
“Many types of peaches are covered in paper bags on the trees to protect them from pests and enhance their colour. However, Akatsuki is a variety that is often grown without bags. Peaches get sweeter the more sunshine they’re exposed to while they’re growing. This requires considerable effort in pest management, such as keeping the fields clean and daily monitoring of the fruit's growth. As a result, this variety can be quite challenging for farmers. But all of that hard work results in the incredibly sweet peaches we all get to enjoy each year.
In this way, the Akatsuki solidified its position as the signature peach of Fukushima Prefecture. Additionally, recent cultivation techniques for peaches in Fukushima have been established around the Akatsuki. Since then, several new peach varieties have been developed, many of which inherit the qualities of the Akatsuki. In that sense, the Akatsuki is indeed a central figure in Fukushima’s peach culture.”
The name Akatsuki comes from “Akatsuki-Mairi” (the Mt. Shinobu Dawn Procession), a harvest festival that has been held in Fukushima City since the Edo Period. This reflects how eagerly the local people looked forward to the success of the new peach. Their hopes and wishes were eventually granted when Akatsuki became one of the most recognised peach brands across Japan. And it’s all thanks to the exceptional dedication of the researchers at the Prefectural Fruit Tree Research Centre, who pioneered the trials, along with the local growers who went the extra mile to see their peach succeed.
Akatsuki peaches are ready to eat when they become fragrant and yield to gentle pressure. Enjoy the delicious Fukushima peaches that can be savoured over the long period from July to September!

Optical sensors pass only the finest peaches

Between July and the end of September, peach growers bring in boxes of their carefully-cultivated peaches to the JA Fukushima Mirai sorting facility in Koori Town.
The peaches are then examined by an optical sensor, which sorts them by sugar content, size, colour and other properties. They are then carefully placed in boxes and shipped out across the country.

The light of blessings and the joy of harvest overflowing in the orchards

In late July of 2023, under the blazing summer sun at the peak of peach season, we visited Hishinuma Farm in the Iizaka area of Fukushima City.
The farm primarily grows peaches, along with apples, cherries, and other fruits. They also process and sell their harvest.
The reflective sheets they place under the trees to give the peaches a more beautiful colour create sparkles of light that dance around the trees, illuminating their leaves and fruit.
“The sun is the very source of natural energy”, says the affable and cheerful head of the farm, Kenichi Hishinuma. “Soaking the fruit in sunshine makes it as sweet as possible. It also makes the pulp smooth as silk and bursting with juice. The Akatsuki gives you the very best a peach has to offer”. He’s a seasoned veteran, having spent fifty years growing peaches. “The Akatsuki peaches grown in Koori, the next town over, are presented to the Imperial Household each year. Of course, Akatsuki is the most popular here as well”, he continues, happily talking about his favourite subject. “I hope you all think of Akatsuki peaches whenever summer rolls around and treat yourself to their incredible taste”.
ふくしまプライド。
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