Cantaloupe

What's a Cantaloupe Worth?

Estimated value: $2.97

A single fresh cantaloupe melon, typically weighing 3-5 pounds, commonly found in grocery store produce sections.

Fun fact: Cantaloupe prices can vary dramatically by region and season, ranging from as low as $1.48 to over $4.99 each depending on location and availability.

If you mean the fresh cantaloupe fruit, its current estimated market value is about $1.00–$1.44 per kg wholesale in the U.S., which is roughly $0.45–$0.65 per lb; Tridge’s most recent U.S. report also cites a wholesale price of $24 per 1/2 carton on 2025-04-11. The figure $2.97 is therefore not a typical current wholesale benchmark for fresh cantaloupe, but it could reflect a retail price, a smaller package/unit, or a localized market rather than the broader U.S. wholesale market.

• Current estimated value and why: The best current estimate from the provided market data is about $1.00–$1.44/kg wholesale, with recent U.S. prices staying in that band over the past four weeks, suggesting a relatively balanced supply-demand environment. In 2024, wholesale prices were described as remaining consistent between $0.99 and $2.10/kg, which also points to a fairly stable commodity market rather than a volatile luxury item.

• Historical price trends / notable sales: In 2023, U.S. wholesale prices ranged from $1.03 to $2.03/kg, and in 2024 they were reported between $0.99 and $2.10/kg, so the market has been fairly steady at the wholesale level. The same source notes a sharp drop in U.S. export prices from about $8.41–$8.42/kg in 2023 to $0.34–$1/kg in 2024, indicating a major shift in trade conditions. Import prices also fluctuated widely in 2024, from $1.07 to $6.51/kg, showing that logistics, origin, and seasonal constraints can strongly affect realized prices.

• What makes it valuable: For fresh cantaloupe, value comes mostly from freshness, seasonality, supply chain efficiency, and size/quality grading, not rarity. It is a mass-market produce item, so its price is driven by agricultural yields, transportation costs, and regional availability rather than scarcity.

• 3–4 surprising or fun facts:

- Cantaloupe can have very different prices depending on whether you’re looking at wholesale, export, or import markets, with export prices in the source swinging far more than domestic wholesale prices. - The market data references multiple U.S. cities—including Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco—showing that local market conditions matter even for a common fruit. - The term “cantaloupe” also appears in the art market, where it is used in titles like *Still Life with Cantaloupe* and contemporary fruit-themed works, showing the fruit’s cultural visibility beyond food. - The global art market is huge by comparison: worldwide art sales were estimated at $57.5 billion in 2024, which illustrates how a humble fruit name can appear in very different economic contexts.

• What affects its price: The biggest drivers are condition, freshness, supply, seasonality, transport costs, and market region. For any cantaloupe sold outside commodity channels—such as in food photography, art prints, or decorative products—provenance, artist reputation, format, size, and whether it is an original or print would matter more than the fruit itself.

• Notable stories or controversies: No major controversy appears in the supplied market data for fresh cantaloupe itself. The most notable story is economic rather than scandalous: the source shows a strong price divergence between domestic wholesale prices and export/import prices, which can happen when trade routes, demand shifts, or reporting bases change. In the art world, cantaloupe appears in still lifes and fruit-themed works, but the provided sources do not indicate any controversy tied specifically to cantaloupe imagery.

If you want, I can also reinterpret your query as “Cantaloupe” the company/asset/brand rather than the fruit and research that valuation instead.