Canada takes title for biggest fruit salad

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MONTREAL, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Canada has claimed the Guinness World Records title for creating the largest-ever fruit salad, weighing in at more than five tons at a Montreal university.

A Guinness representative was on hand Tuesday to monitor the weigh-in of the salad at McGill University and confirmed it beat the previous record of 10,440 pounds created at the California State University at Fresno.

Students and faculty volunteers at McGill produced a giant 11,197-pound fruit salad, most of which was destined for charitable groups to feed the poor, the McGill Reporter said.

More than half of the fruit was harvested from the university's own gardens, the report said.

The salad included more than 5,000 pounds of watermelon, 1,300 pounds of cantaloupe, 1,000 pounds of honeydew melons, 2,250 pounds of pineapple, 220 pounds of apples and 360 pounds of strawberries, the student paper said.

Nearly 1,000 pounds of rinds and peels from the fruit was sent to university and city composting facilities, organizers said.