One 'Nut Rage' Spawns Another

Online retailers see macadamia sales surge in wake of Korean Air exec's tirade
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 15, 2014 2:38 PM CST
One 'Nut Rage' Spawns Another
Cho Hyun-ah, the oldest child of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho, speaks at the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Dec. 12, 2014.   (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

When Korean Air Lines exec Cho Hyun-ah freaked out over how a flight attendant served her macadamia nuts, most South Koreans apparently thought, "huh, what's a macadamia nut?" As the AP reports, sales of the previously little-known nut have soared in the country: eBay's South Korean arm said today that sales are up twelvefold in the past five days, having gone from 5% of its nut sales to more than half.

Additionally, the nation's largest online retailer has seen its sales multiply to 20 times what they were last week, and yet another has just plain sold out of macadamias. Cho has partially resigned amid the furor, which has presumably taught the legions of new macadamia fans to eat them on a plate, not out of the bag. (These are perilous times for flight attendants.)

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