KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 — Iceland is facing a shortage of cucumbers, and social media influencers may be to blame.
The trend began with influencers such as Logan Moffitt, known as “Cucumber Guy,” sharing recipes for cucumber salads on TikTok, The New York Times wrote in an article.
“Sometimes,” Moffitt says in his videos, “you need to eat an entire cucumber,” before demonstrating how to make the salads.
The hashtag ‘cucumber salad’ has gathered around 150,000 videos on TikTok and this viral trend has led to an increased demand for cucumbers in Iceland, which stores in Iceland have struggled to meet, Icelandic news outlet RÚV reported on Wednesday.
Daniel Sigthorsson who lives in Reykjavik, wanted to try making a salad, but found that there were no cucumbers in his local grocery store.
The 30-year-old said there were none in the second store he visited, either. Or the third.
“I was like, ‘That’s weird,’ That’s one of the things we never run out of in Iceland. And then I saw the news,” he told NYT.
Kronan, one of Iceland’s largest grocery chains, said that cucumbers have sold out in stores across the country.
Kronan’s chief executive Gudrun Adalsteinsdottir said the sales picked up so quickly that the store did not have time to prepare.
“Social media has had a huge impact on marketing in recent years. The landscape is in fact completely changed and it is important for companies to pay close attention to what is trending,” he added.
Other ingredients used in the popular online recipes, such as sesame oil, rice vinegar and fish sauce, have also seen a sharp rise in sales, with Kronan’s marketing department noted a “200 per cent increase” in demand for these items.
The situation highlights how social media trends can disrupt food supply chains, especially in places like Iceland, which relies heavily on local agriculture as importing goods can be expensive.
Kronan usually sources 99 per cent of its cucumbers from local greenhouses, but due to the sudden spike in demand, the store had to import cucumbers from the Netherlands.
Kristin Linda Sveinsdottir, the marketing director of SFG, which represents vegetable farmers in Iceland, said that the timing of the cucumber craze has been particularly unfortunate.
It coincides with a lull in cucumber production cycles and a slight shortage of carbon dioxide, a critical component in greenhouse farming.
Some people in Iceland have even messaged Moffitt.
“You’ve literally created a cucumber shortage,” one person wrote to him on Instagram, he said as he shared a screenshot of the post with NYT.
Another post said, “They’re blaming you man,” referring to the shortage.
Despite the inconvenience, some Icelanders have found humour in the situation.
Gudny Ljosba Hreinsdottir, who runs a food tour company, joked, “Probably soon there will be a cucumber black market here. I mean, who knows?”
This isn’t the first time a social media craze has caused shortages.
Similar trends have previously impacted the availability of items like baked feta, Kewpie mayo and flavoured water in other countries.
