Baby Buddha Shaped Fruit Moulds

Gao Xianzhang is a farmer from Hexia village in the Hebel province of Northern China spent six years developing baby-Buddha-shaped pears, and is now cashing in on selling his funny shaped fruit to the masses. In 2009, Gao Xianzhang harvested 10,000 pears and sold them for £5 each – a pretty penny for a novelty-shaped fruit. The fruits are formed into the shape of baby Buddhas while they are still growing on the tree as a result of being encased in small fiberglass and plastic moulds. The process may sound simple enough, but Gao Xianzhang reports that timing is everything when working with moulds. There is a “sweet spot” of time to add the casing – attaching the mould too early can result in the weight of the mould snapping the fruit’s weak stem – and likewise, the moulding must be removed at the right time otherwise the fruit will begin to rot from the inside out. How did Gao Xianzhang figure all this out? Easy: A six year process of trial and error. Luckily for him, the “fruits” of his labor were a major hit.