Hitachi feeds 5,000 with miracle plum mountain

By Lester Haines → More by this author

29 Jul 2005 11:04

Good Lord!

Any reader who has ever pondered just exactly what firms like Mitsubishi don't make will be well aware that Japanese firms have a talent for diversification. You know the scenario - some bloke starts off in 1947 knocking up radios from tins cans in his garden shed and by 2000 his multinational corporation is pumping out everything from flash chips to oil rigs.

We must, however, give a special mention to Hitachi, whose Global Storage Technologies division has become a world leader in the production of plums. And not just any old plums, but ripe, juicy plums all the better to fill the bellies of the most needy.

No, we didn't believe it either, but here's the press release:

Record-breaking Bay Area temperatures have added to early ripening of the plum crop on the campus of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, prompting the San Jose-based company to harvest the bumper crop sooner than expected this year. On Sunday, July 31, Hitachi will organize a harvest that's expected to include more than 150 Hitachi employees and volunteers from Village Harvest, a nonprofit suburban harvesting cooperative in Santa Clara Valley.

Further proof of this plum-based philanthropy comes in the form of the 2003 harvest (part of which can been seen on the left), during which 100 volunteers harvested 8,453 pounds of plums.

A lot of plums, eh? Nah - that's as nothing compared to this year's expected yield of 10,000 pounds of plums, enough to feed well, you do the maths...

For the record, Village Harvest is a "nonprofit suburban harvesting cooperative in Santa Clara Valley, California, which brings together neighbors and community organizations to provide food for the hungry, preserve our heritage and skills, and promote sustainable use of urban resources".

Good stuff. We should at this point stick in something about Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, blah, disk drive, blah, storage capacity, blah blah blah, but instead we'll offer this link to a Yahoo! map of Prunedale, California, which industry analysts believe may be on Hitachi's global acquisition list. ®