New Delhi: At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world welcomed the new year, Gen Z scarfed down 12 grapes in under a minute.
For the second year in a row, the ‘12 grapes’ tradition has ruled over the internet. The tradition has become so popular that grapes were sold out in most areas of Delhi by 10 pm on New Year’s Eve.
Online delivery platforms like Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, and Blinkit even offered a special 12-grape packet for the occasion.
“Today, Instamart saw 235K searches for grapes in the first half of the day, with searches starting as early as 5 am,” Swiggy co-founder Phani Kishan Addepalli wrote in a post on X.
What is the tradition?
Unlike the Danes jumping into the new year, or the Germans breaking plates for good luck, the Spanish tradition of ‘las doce uvas de la suerte’ (the twelve grapes of luck), which dates back hundreds of years, has become culturally appropriated across the globe.
Each grape represents one month of the coming year. The grapes are eaten in 12 seconds, either when the clock strikes twelve or before; the internet remains divided, under a table.
Influencers flooded social media describing the “correct” method of eating the grapes. While some believe the ritual represents good luck, others hope it will improve their love life.
Videos titled “POV: you ate 12 grapes at midnight last year, and it worked” can be seen across social media platforms, showing people first eating the grapes and then getting married later that year.
Whereas, another trend the grapes have ignited online is the “two kinds of people at midnight”, showing partygoers kissing their loved ones to welcome the new year and then panning to their friends huddled under tables.
Meanwhile, there were some who were over the whole trend, with one person preferring eating 12 Hajmolas (digestive tablets) at midnight instead.
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How India reacted to this tradition
In preparation for the New Year’s Eve ritual, Instamart, earlier this week, launched a campaign starring a grape in Mumbai. In a video circulating online, a man is dressed as a grape with the words “Celeb hu. New Years pe dekhlo (I am a celebrity. You can see me on New Years)” written on his dress. He is escorted around with “Z+ level” security personnel holding posters saying, “12 grapes in just 10 minutes”, highlighting the platform’s quick delivery services.
Grapes were almost all sold out near Ashram, Nizamuddin, Greater Kailash-2 and ITO on Instamart, Zepto, and Blinkit by 10 pm and near Noida Sector 46 and DLF Magnolia in Gurugram.
Between Colaba, Andheri East, Bandra West, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus area in Mumbai, few were available on Instamart.
Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa, in an X post from 31 December 2024, said that the platform reached a new milestone of the most grapes sold in a day, delivering seven times the usual quantity.
This year, Instamart reported searches 78 times higher than usual for grapes, with Zepto also witnessing a dramatic spike in interest in the fruit.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)