What’s the deal with cucumbers? How TikTok made the grocery store staple go viral

How does a piece of produce go viral?

Take the lowly cucumber, so frequently misidentified as a vegetable. (It’s a fruit, though in recipes it’s often prepared like a veggie.) It’s not necessarily underrated among produce, but it’s also not as flavorful as butternut squash, nor does it inspire passionate debate like broccoli or brussel sprouts. It’s the kind of neutral, mild grocery store staple that isn’t screaming for the TikTok trend treatment.

And yet, the cucumber’s day in the digital sun came in early July, when popular home chef Logan Moffitt shared a video of how he uses an entire cucumber. It wasn’t sponsored or backed by a cucumber manufacturer. Moffitt, who already had a sizable following of 3 million prior to his cuke series, just wanted to spotlight one of his favorite foods.

Moffitt has since become TikTok’s “cucumber guy” for his reliable output of cucumber-centric clips in which he slices a whole cucumber with a mandoline, mixes it with various sauces, seasonings and add-ins, shakes the concoction to blend it and tests it out with silver chopsticks.

“Sometimes you need to eat an entire cucumber,” he frequently tells viewers. “This is the best way to do it.”

His simple but flavorful recipes have been viewed millions of times and inspire other influencers on the app to try out his favorite recipes or test their own. (At least one of them cut themselves on the mandoline, despite Moffitt’s constant pleas for viewers to be mindful of the sharp tool.)

“I think cucumbers are a really perfect baseline for a lot of different flavors,” Moffitt told CNN. “They’re also really accessible — they’re very cheap, especially this time of year, and so a lot of people can participate in the trend.”

For a viral food trend, the cucumber’s moment seems to be outlasting the typical TikTok trend cycle. Moffitt’s recipes, delivery and digital savvy have helped the cucumber survive its 15 minutes.

Inside the cucumber’s unlikely risk

At-home chefs on TikTok have a more challenging job than most influencers on the app because they’re expected to balance innovation with familiarity — “recipes they know and trust and can go back to over and over and over again,” said Jenna Drenten, associate professor of marketing at Loyola University Chicago.

Moffitt has found success by making a run-of-the-mill fruit memorable.

“Cucumbers are a kind of lame food,” Drenten said. “Produce-wise, they often do not often get all the fame and glory.”

In Moffitt’s kitchen, though, cukes are a nutritious and subtle-tasting foundation for recipes where other flavors steal the show. Among the “best ways” to eat an entire cucumber (or two), according to Moffitt: Cucumber kimchi. California roll cukes. Even peanut butter-and-jelly cucumber salad, which Moffitt said tastes better than it sounds.

“It’s cucumbers, but it’s also not just cucumbers,” Drenten said. “The equation that he has for building these recipes is taking flavors that are already things that people like — but how do we make cucumber be the base of it?”

Moffitt’s favorite, oft-replicated recipe is a bagel-and-lox inspired salad that blends smoked salmon, everything bagel seasoning, cream cheese, capers, dill and red onions with — what else? — cucumbers. The oblong fruit is one of two ingredients he includes in nearly every recipe — the other is his beloved MSG, the unfairly maligned flavor enhancer.

Moffitt’s cucumber videos are also exceedingly algorithm- and viewer-friendly, Drenten said. They’re typically a minute or less and rely less on words than strong visuals. They also require little-to-no actual cooking — most of the recipes are served cold.

He’s posting with the right frequency, too, she said: Since his initial July 8 video, he’s shared around 60 videos featuring cucumbers — including a memorable clip where he’s concocting a salad while treading water in a lake — and he’s posting new recipes nearly every day.

“The style that he posts with is very native to TikTok — this sort of quick pace, keeping people engaged and keeping their attention for as long as the TikTok algorithm will put them there,” Drenten said.

TikTok’s impact on sales is murkier

Whether the online cucumber craze has translated to actual sales is harder to track.

Pamela Riemenschneider, retail editor at Blue Book Services, a marketing information agency for the produce industry, said the relevant sales data that would show whether Moffitt’s videos have led to a significant uptick in cucumber sales isn’t available yet. (Some commenters on Moffitt’s videos have reported being unable to find cucumbers at their local grocers. Peak season for cucumbers typically runs May through August, though, so summer is typically its most popular season among consumers, too.)

That’s the challenge of influencer marketing, Drenten said — the relationship between virality and sales isn’t always clear. Produce is especially difficult to influence people to buy because “it’s not something that you can click to buy online easily,” Drenten said. Moffitt’s mandoline, meanwhile, is easily findable in his Amazon storefront, linked to his TikTok account.

“People are following him and the cucumbers are going viral, but that’s not always going to translate into actual purchases,” Drenten said. “A lot of folks that might be seeing his content are just there for the entertainment element of it rather than actually trying the recipes themselves.”

But TikTok-viral recipes have had some impact on grocery sales: Riemenschneider said that cherry tomato sales improved 29% in the third full week of January 2021, compared to the same week a year earlier. January 2021 was when TikTok’s famed baked feta pasta first took off.

Even when cucumber season is over, Moffitt’s heart belongs to cukes

Moffitt thinks his cucumber videos have connected because he keeps things simple.

“People who are maybe beginner cooks and people who are advanced can all draw inspiration,” Moffitt said. “Because a lot of my recipes, I don’t measure, honestly … I present it in a way that makes it stress-free and simple.”

Moffitt has never been just the cucumber guy. He gained a following on the app, after all, for making kimchi and cold noodles, among other easy recipes. He’s also started incorporating entire blocks of tofu into his videos — another food that benefits from being the nutritious, neutral base in a flavorful recipe.

Still, it will always be cucumbers that have his heart. Even when peak cucumber season is over and squashes become the seasonal produce du jour, Moffitt said he’ll always continue eating the reliable oblong fruits.