Price El Dorado: Stores Charging for Melons by the Gram

Summer is here, and so is the season for one of the most refreshing and delicious fruits – melons. But did you know that melons are not fruits but vegetables? Czech melons are practically not found in stores and are most often imported from Spain or Greece.

We mapped the price of melons in convenience stores in Prague. The prices were different in various stores, with the most expensive option being seventy crowns for a kilogram of melon from Spain.

One of the Vietnamese convenience stores in Žižkov had a melon on sale for forty crowns, which was then reduced from fifty-five crowns per kilogram. This is a similar price to supermarkets; only two quarters were available. The surrounding Žižkov stores had a kilogram of melon priced between 50 and 55 crowns. They could have had an estimated five to six kilograms so that a customer would pay around three hundred crowns for one.

In Vinohrady, one kilogram costs fifty crowns in one case and sixty in another. The same goes for locations around Náměstí Míru and Náměstí Jiřího z Poděbrad.

The price for a kilogram of melon was favorable in Libeň, with one store charging 100 grams for 4.50 crowns, so 45 crowns per kilogram. The exact price was a few meters away, and we discovered fifty crowns per kilogram in two other stores. We saw a small piece for thirty crowns in one obscure convenience store.

The center of Prague is notoriously known for tourist convenience stores that do not offer fruits and vegetables. However, we found one convenience store in the center that provides melons. In this store, a kilogram of melon from Spain cost seventy crowns. The saleswoman assured us that it was tasty, sweet, and seedless. In the case of buying a whole melon, which should weigh six kilograms, this sweet summer delicacy would cost 420 crowns.

So, if you are looking for a refreshing summer snack, be prepared to pay different prices depending on the location of the convenience store.