Harrods selling cherries for £1.75 a piece

A plush department store is selling cherries for a whopping £160 per kilo.

Shoppers have left astounded that Harrods is punting the stone fruits for around £1.75 per single cherry.

Staff working at the food hall in West London, are even prepping customers on the price to avoid any disagreements at the till, reports the Mirror.

For red cherries to count as part of your diet’s five-a-day, you need to eat 16 of them and if you plan on doing this while shopping at Harrods that would cost a shocking £28.05.

The posh store says its grower is based in San Francisco and is the best in the world. But the price still seems extortionate and is sure to leave a bitter taste with some shoppers.

For example, if you bought cherries at Tesco and Sainsbury’s, it would cost an average £10 per kilo.

When the Mirror newspaper visited Chrisp Street market in East London, they found trader Sarajul Haque selling red cherries at his bustling fruit and veg stall for just £6.60 a kilo.

This makes the Harrods offering 2,400% more expensive than Mr Haque’s. The 51-year-old said: “Mine vary in price according to the supplier – sometimes it’s £5 and sometimes £7, so cheap, but they are good and as you can see, I’m very busy.”

Minicab driver Ataur Rahman, 60, was buying half a kilo of cherries, which cost him £3.30, at the stall.

He was gobsmacked when told of the Harrods price and said: “It’s way too much, how can anybody spend that? Here, they cost around £6 a kilo and I don’t think there’s any difference between them and the Harrods ones.”

Meanwhile, Joan Clarke, 79, who was browsing in the market, said: “Near where I live in Bethnal Green I see them going for £7.99 a kilo on the market and usually wait until they go down a little bit before buying them.

"The Harrods price is crazy money. But if people are silly enough to spend that on cherries, let them buy them.”

In December, cherry farmers in Australia, which is a major exporter, said they had suffered their worst harvest in 50 years after wet weather damaged 70% of crops, pushing up prices as supply struggled to meet demand.

Meanwhile, cherries were not the only fruit with a hard-to-swallow price in Harrods. The store’s Japanese Crown melon, which is presented in a black and gold box, costs £150.

The Mirror contacted Harrods for comment.

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