Raúl Cardaba is a fruit seller. The TikTok fruit seller (@fruterotiktokero). He is 25 years old, has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, 160,000 on TikTok and has managed to make the fruit shop – aptly named Vitaminas – that he runs with his father and sister go viral. And not just on social media. There are those who make the pilgrimage to Aristóteles street, 1 (Madrid) to meet the person responsible for making such unknown fruits as mamones (a sweet food from countries such as Colombia, Venezuela or Paraguay, among others) fashionable. He is now on vacation, but, before leaving, he has left almost thirty videos prepared so that his networks do not decline. A fruit influencer through and through. Question. He comes from a family of fruit sellers. Was it always the only option? Answer. I don't like studying. I don't get along well with books. At home, I was given the option of continuing my studies with difficulty or working in the shop. I had just turned 16 and I chose the fruit shop. Q. How did you get started with social media? A. When I was 19, with a friend who worked with me in the shop. When the TikTok app came out, we started making humorous videos without any commercial intention. Q. Until you decided that it was a good tool for the fruit shop… A. Yes. It was about six months ago. After almost ten years working in the business, I felt that I had reached my limit and I considered leaving the fruit shop, going to Alicante where my girlfriend is from and changing my life. While I was deciding what to do, one day, without any explanation, I recorded an informative video, uploaded it and until today. The growth has been amazing. I have gone from 25,000 followers on TikTok and none on Instagram to what I have now. I was a little scared. At first, I didn't even put the address of the shop: my father still had a certain aversion to social media.Before being on Aristóteles, 1, where it has been for 25 years, the Vitaminas fruit shop was on the same street for another decade, half a kilometre from its current location.INMA FLORESP. Could you tell me which video made the difference?A. One in which you talked about the soursop (a fruit from the American continent) and its properties. That video has already had 4 or 5 million views.P. You are a living example of how to make trades survive and modernise.A. All these trades are being lost and will end up doing so if they are not given another approach. You are only a fruit seller if you like being one. The slavery of this type of business is brutal.P. A very hard job to which you have to add your double shift as a star of the networks…A. I have almost three jobs. The physical one in the shop, going to Mercamadrid every day it opens (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), serving (a lot of people come who want me to serve them); creating content for social networks and answering orders. There could be one person in charge of each thing and they would have work for the whole day. In fact, we have just hired someone new. We have opened another Instagram account (@vitaminafruteria) to manage orders. Q. How many mobile phones do you have? A. Two now. Although sometimes I think I need another one. When I decided that we had to sell online, we didn't have a website, but many people were asking for our products. I got anxious and put my personal number in the Instagram bio. That was daily harassment. Calls, messages at the wee hours of the morning… Q. Fruit shops like this one make clear the importance of personalized attention. A. Here we give millimetric attention or we try. That is being lost with self-service. We are professionals in our sector and we know how to choose the best fruit for each client. It's like the pretty fruit: a nuisance that has few solutions. The same farmers follow us. Since now the pretty fruit rules, the tastier or juicier ones are lost. I buy fruit at Mercamadrid by tasting it because I believe that professionals must do so for their clients. You can be guided by weight or appearance, but the only way is to try and have criteria. A brand of peaches that has a great season one year may not the next.
By popular demand, Cardaba is considering doing merchandising with the Vitaminas t-shirt, whose design is the same as always.INMA FLORESP. In other words, he makes a killing at Mercamadrid.A. Every day!P. And what is true about the complaint that fruit is very expensive?A. Before, prices varied a lot depending on the bad fruit and the good. Now there is very little difference. Buying an avocado in a supermarket because it costs 25 cents cheaper is not worth it: you will not be able to eat it because it is hard as a rock and will not ripen.P. One of the characteristics of your account is that it shows off 'new' fruits.A. I think people are tired of pears, apples and bananas. Noticing the diversity of colours, textures and flavours draws attention. There are tropical fruits that are difficult to see that are now arriving here, in a way, thanks to the fact that I have made them viral. The mamoncillos, for example, were not sold. Now they are: there is demand.P. With such a predicament, I imagine that you will not lack requests for collaboration. A. I have a manager who takes care of that kind of things for me. A friend's cousin. If I have to respond to brands and business proposals, then I really don't get there… I do very few things. I am very selective. For example, they have offered me advertising for sweets and I have said no, but I have created a brand of vegan gels based on fruits. P. There is a certain didacticism in your account. Like insisting that we are the garden of Europe. R. We have millions of products that we do not know or use and giving them a voice is important. Now the sellers of Mercamadrid tell me that fruit sellers come to ask for what I upload on my networks… P. I see you as the Minister of Agriculture. How do you deal with fame? R. I have not assimilated that I am a public figure and that I influence other people. It has been very fast and since my life has not changed… P. But, do you like it? R. Yes. It is true that there are people who are more respectful than others, but the feedback is always very nice. From people who write to thank me or who are happy that I am doing well. And then there is the fact that other fruit sellers, even older ones, ask me and learn from me. Q. What is the secret? A. There are people who make fruit videos and they have not been so successful. I think there is something in my way of communicating. What is it? I imagine that it is the passion I have for what I do. You can follow EL PAÍS Gastro on Instagram and X.