Gigantic fruit salad breaks world record

MONTREAL, QUE. – McGill University in Montreal has broken the Guinness World Record for creating the world’s largest fruit salad.

The 11,197-lb salad was chopped, peeled and weighed by approximately 300 volunteers from around the Montreal university. The event was organized by McGill Food and Dining Services as part of the school’s orientation week, and was designed to highlight healthy eating, community engagement, and sustainable practices like buying local.

Local harvest

More than half of the fruit used was grown on McGill’s Macdonald campus, home of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. Other donations came from the school’s foodservice partners.

As well as other fruit, the massive salad featured more than 5,000 lbs of watermelon, 1,300 lbs of cantaloupe, 1,000 lbs of honeydew melon, 2,250 lbs of pineapple, 220 lbs of apples and 360 lbs of strawberries.

More than 60 per cent of the fruit salad was donated to local charities, while about 300 servings will be sold in the school’s cafeteria, with proceeds also going to charity. About 500 to 1,000 lbs of fruit rinds and peels will end up in McGill’s composter, Big Hanna, while the rest will be composted by the city.

The previous world record, for a 10,440-lb fruit salad, was set by California State University at Fresno in 2011.