FUKUSHIMA: A chorus of praises has been showered on peaches grown in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, by foreign nationals who enjoyed the fruit while visiting Japan for the Tokyo Olympics, with their love for the delicacy being disseminated throughout the world through social media.

Locals in the disaster-hit prefecture cheered such warm reactions, calling them an important outcome of “the Reconstruction Olympics.”

The Tokyo Games are dubbed the Reconstruction Olympics to showcase Japan’s recovery from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s  Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Fukushima peaches are “outstanding,” said Robert Laing Harrow, head coach of the Australian women’s softball team. Olympic softball matches took place at a stadium in Fukushima.

Ken Eriksen, who leads the women’s softball team of the United States, said Fukushima peaches are “absolutely delicious.”

Fukushima, the second-largest producer of peaches among the country’s 47 prefectures, has been promoting sales of the fruit. The prefectural government delivered 30 kilograms of Akatsuki peaches, Fukushima’s mainstay peach brand known to be thick and juicy, to the baseball teams of Japan and the Dominican Republic.

“We provided an additional 30 kilograms” as the peaches were so popular that the first batch was gone quickly, said an official of the prefectural government.

A series of Twitter posts by overseas reporters praising Fukushima peaches, including selfies with the fruit, carried the hashtag of “Fukushima no Momo Delicious,” meaning Fukushima peaches are delicious, which became a trending topic.

Although all Olympic events in Fukushima were held with no spectators in the stands, Tetsuo Goto, 63, a peach farmer in the town of Kori, Fukushima, said that the Tokyo Games “had a meaning as the Reconstruction Olympics.”

“The Olympics worked to wipe out (radiation-related) reputational damage more than any other promotional activities,” Goto said.

JIJI Press