With 6.7 million TikTok followers and a seemingly endless supply of cucumbers, Logan Moffitt epitomizes what it means to be an influencer: literally impacting the choices consumers make, in his case, in the kitchen. His footprint is far-reaching, even spiking revenue in sectors of the corporate landscape.
After two and a half years of creating content, the Ottawa-based influencer began going viral over the summer due to his straight-forward appeal while putting a twist on a straight-forward dish: cucumber salad. The repetition from video to video facilitates the ability for his millions of viewers to replicate his recipes at home. “I’m just sharing my easy, stress-free recipes,” Moffitt tells me. “The side effect of that is the influence that other people will try them and get in the kitchen and cook.”
A lot of people are trying out his recipes. In fact, some of his hundreds of millions of viewers seem to be replicating them to a tee, down to the tools he uses. The first step in every salad he prepares is to slice the cucumber using a mandolin. According to leading kitchen tool company, OXO, mandolin sales since Moffitt’s videos have gone viral have seen a “dramatic increase” across various retailers, says Nicole Rivera, VP of Marketing for OXO. “[Our mandolin slicers] have seen noticeable boosts in demand on our assortment ranging from sales lifts of +30% to almost +600% depending on the product.”
Moffitt’s use of a mandolin highlights how his recipes make it easier for people to prepare vegetables at home. But the choice to use a mandoline rather than a knife in his videos didn’t have such intention behind it. He’s been using mandolines for as long as he can remember. “You’ve got to learn and practice a little bit how to use a knife,” he says. “If you want to get uniform pieces of cucumber, tomato, or onion, you’re going to have to put a lot of thought and consideration into it. But with a mandolin, you can just fly through it.”
The cucumber salads that Moffitt makes in his videos are unlike any others that someone could purchase at a deli or grocery store. They’re indulgent and a whole meal in themselves. His favorite cucumber salad to make is the one with smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, capers, red onion, avocado and everything bagel seasoning. Moffitt will barely ever touch a knife for other ingredients–he uses a kitchen scissor to cut the salmon and dill. The minimal cleanup is undeniably a draw. He stuffs the to-go container with all of the accouterments, shakes it vigorously, digs in with his metal chopsticks and slurps forcefully with his vocal chords. Other cucumber creations he’s made include ones with thousand island dressing, bacon bits and cheddar; crab and kewpie mayo; and peanut butter, chili crisps, and soy sauce.
You’ll rarely catch Moffitt cooking on the stove. “I definitely like cold foods more than hot foods,” he says. “Cold foods are great because most of the time you don’t have to cook them. So it’s even easier. I really like easy stuff to cook.” Prior to going viral in July, he would largely make cold Korean dishes, in which he gained a large Korean following, largely on YouTube Shorts. To this day, these dishes are still his favorite and he travels quite often to South Korea, where he posts content of what he’s eating. His videos where he prepares elaborate kimchi and cold noodle recipes emit an intrigue that he must have grown up in a Korean household–from the specific techniques and ingredients he uses like MSG. But having lived in Ottawa his whole life, he says he just taught himself. “I usually just watched a lot of different YouTubers that were chefs,” Moffitt says about his childhood. “The repetition of cooking all the time, you end up learning the basics.”
Moffitt has been creating content on social media since 2022. “As TikTok became a thing, I was constantly watching different food TikTokers,” he says. “I was like, I really wanna do that, but I feel like it’s too late now.” He started posting anyway, and slowly started gaining some traction. “What I like about social media is that you can do whatever you want and your ideas can always change.”
In September, OXO’s mandolin sales spiked four to five times, and have tapered off a little bit in the past few weeks compared to early 2024, Rivera says. The OXO mandolin that has seen the biggest spike in sales is the OXO Handheld Mandolin Slicer. The first recipe suggestion that the company makes in the product’s description is cucumber salad.
Moffitt is simply obsessed with cucumbers. “They go with a lot of different flavors. You can make them taste like practically anything,” says Moffitt. “They’re cold, crunchy…You don’t have to heat it up…You can just eat it most of the time right away.” He has also partnered with large brands like Chipotle, Netflix, DoorDash and Sephora (to help promote a cucumber eye mask).
Mandolins are nothing new. But Moffitt has unlocked a means of utilizing the kitchen tool in a way that has opened the eyes of young consumers in the kitchen. He proudly wears the title of ‘Cucumber Guy.’ “I think it’s awesome,” Moffitt says. “It’s definitely kind of hilarious to be named after a vegetable.”
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