Dr Gillian McKeith described pumpkin seeds as the equivalent of ‘viagra for women’ on a television nutrition programme during the summer. Reports at the time said Sainsbury’s saw sales increase by 256 per cent.
“I had to go on television and talk about it,” says Lincolnshire grower David Bowman. “It all helps push sales and raise pumpkins’ profile, and apparently some health food shops were cleaned out.”
So while their seeds might be in demand, how about the fresh equivalent?
Last year was a fantastic year for growing pumpkin, this year however, the weather was less than kind.
Steve Whitworth, sales director with Oakley Farms, says: “Last year we had the best growing conditions ever and the crop was fantastic. Volumes were up by around 25 per cent.”
This year couldn’t be more different, says Bowman. “Pumpkins do not like cold and wet and all summer we’ve had cold and wet weather. We did have a brief warm spell, but now we’re back to cold and wet.”
The result means that volumes are going to be considerably down on last year, says Whitworth; by around 20 per cent on a normal year.
“Last season we were around 25 per cent up, so this year we’re around 45 per cent down compared with last year’s volumes.”
Bowman, however, is a little more conservative with his figures, estimating his crop to be only around 20 per cent down compared to last year.
Just to add to growers’ problems, the wet weather has also meant an increase in the amount of rots being found.
Most growers are beginning to report problems and Whitworth says his supplies have been hit. “We’re already seeing around 10 to 12 per cent of the crop affected by rots, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that goes up to around 20 per cent by the end of the season,” Bowman says.
Those most affected by the weather will be the smaller players, he says, who don’t have the facilities to lift and store their product away from the elements. “A lot of the smaller farms have to leave the pumpkins in the fields and as a result, they won’t know the level of rots. And if they’re packing straight from the field, they’ll find the product isn’t going to have much shelf life.”
The bigger players in the industry are able to store and harden up the fruit before selling, but Whitworth thinks those further down the scale will tend to find pumpkins are not commercially viable this season.
The wet weather has also made harvesting difficult simply from the point of view of getting out into the fields. As a result, a number of companies have been turning to technology.
Bruce MacMillan, product sales specialist with seed supplier Seminis, says: “Harvesting is proving difficult so people are getting machinery out into the fields. We’re seeing a lot more cleaning and washing machinery out there this year.”
Whitworth says Oakley Farms has invested in specially developed machinery from Herbert Engineering. “We’re lucky having the Herbert rig, it means we can run up and down the field and harvest and wash the pumpkins quickly and easily. It also allows us to harvest whatever the weather and we can even do it 24 hours if necessary.”
Not everyone has had such serious problems however, and Barfoots of Botley is quite optimistic. Peter Atkins, head of supply chain, says the company’s crop has grown reasonably well: “We’ve had a fairly good growing season despite the weather and the crop is colouring up nicely. What it has meant though, is the pumpkins are good weights but they’re not as big as normal, so they’re quite dense this year.”
However, there are those in the industry who feel the weather conditions may well have been more of a benefit.
Steve Winterbottom, sales director at Tozer Seeds, says: “My gut feeling is that it may have been getting to the stage where pumpkin job is beginning to be over done. I think if we’d had another good season with a bumper crop, it would have been a problem. It’s the old adage really, every cloud has a silver lining.”
He says the wet weather may also have reduced the problem of powdery mildew.
Prices are certainly likely to benefit from the lower volumes, particularly after last year, says Whitworth: “We saw low prices last year because the industry was panic selling when faced with a bumper crop.”
Other growers say the price has settled down a little this year, although pressures will always remain. Atkins says: “The market price has been relatively stable and I don’t see it needing any changes as consumer consumption is going up.”
However, cost remains a constant pressure and Whitworth says labour continues to be an issue: “We use a lot of labour from eastern Europe, but now with the new countries joining the EU, we’re having to pay national insurance on those workers, which is another cost we didn’t have before.”
Traditionally, pumpkins have mainly served an ornamental purpose over the years, with the majority of sales related to Halloween and carving purposes, but perhaps there are opportunities to grow that further, says Winterbottom.
“In the US, they’re also used as ornaments to mark the arrival of autumn, so perhaps there’s scope to develop that in the UK.”
When it comes to decorative purposes, we are certainly seeing a level of innovation on pumpkin. Seminis’s MacMillan says: “We’ve developed a smooth and light coloured pumpkin, called the Orange Smoothie, which young children can paint faces onto them, rather than carve them.”
Marks & Spencer has also taken the concept one stage further by selling pre-carved pumpkins. A spokeswoman says: “We launched it last year and it proved successful so it will be going in around five days before Halloween.”
Ornamental purposes aside, there are some in the industry who think the culinary route may also hold greater opportunity for pumpkins.
Bowman says he has seen sales for edible pumpkins take off: “Our supermarket sales are up by around 40 per cent this year.”
Some growers feel more should be done to promote pumpkins as a culinary option. Whitworth says: “I don’t think enough is being done to promote pumpkins in that way. We’re not giving consumers recipes, it’s just pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie. If we got some celebrity chefs to feature it, it would take off.”
However, while Barfoots is also experiencing some success on the culinary front, Atkins feels the appeal is somewhat limited: “There are better things to eat than pumpkins,” he says.
But perhaps that too could change, says MacMillan: “People are looking to breed pumpkin that does have a good taste and texture, and then all you need is for Jamie Oliver to do something with pumpkin soup.”
Of course, there is a tasty alternative to pumpkin in the form of squash, and its an area which is performing well, claim growers. “Squash really is on a different planet when it comes to taste and texture,” says Tozer’s Winterbottom.
Bowman, who says he stopped growing squash 20 years ago, is considering going back in: “The squash job is definitely starting to come back in, it certainly seems to be building back up.”
Indeed, M&S says it has seen an increasing demand for a wide variety of squash and as a result has widened its range. “We’ve just launched a new mini pumpkin squash, called the pumpkinini. It’s got high sugar levels and its great for things like roasting and mashing,” says the chain.
The new variety goes alongside the retailers current range of around four varieties, including Acorn and Harlequin.
Atkins says Barfoots has been experiencing some success with squash: “We’re selling an awful lot these days, but that’s partly to do with greater availability, you’re seeing it a lot more in retailer these days.”
While the vegetables have been hit by the weather in the same way as pumpkin, he is confident the season will run smoothly. “You’ve got to remain hopeful,” he adds.
When it comes to squash though, the dominant variety is butternut, which Winterbottom says is now on retail shelves 12 months of the year. However Barfoots is hoping to expand on that and have a core range of squash varieties on offer, including Acorn, Gem, Harlequin, Kabocha and Crown Prince.
Butternut itself, is also being developed, says Winterbottom: “There’s work going, particularly over in the US, and they’ve developed a butternut with high sugar levels, around 15 to 16 brix, which is very high. We’re looking at developing squash better suited to the UK market.”
Despite all this though, he says squash remains a relatively unrecognised product in the UK still. “In purely percentage terms, sales are going up quite considerably, but in terms of volume, very few people are eating them. So the potential for it is enormous. We can drive it on, but probably need to look at better promotion in supermarkets to raise awareness.”
And promotion is key - for both pumpkins and squash. Activity remains fairly quiet on the squash front, but pumpkins aren’t much better either.
Pumpkin seeds as a sex aid aside, most of the promotion at the moment is relatively low key and geared towards one day of the year - Halloween.
In-store theatre has certainly picked up in recent years, and the big retailers are keen to make the most of pumpkin sales with Halloween looming. “It’s one of the last seasonal crops we’ve got left. Retailers are certainly making a bit more of an effort with it, which can only be a good thing,” says Whitworth.
However, the growers cannot sit back and let the retailers do all the work for them, and some are already taking the initiative.
Bowman in fact feels the majority of the promotional efforts are coming from the growers themselves. As well as doing television interviews on the sexual potency of pumpkin, he’s also been heavily involved in the annual Spalding Pumpkin Festival on October 15.
He will be providing pumpkins to local schools for children to carve and the festival itself involves a parade through town and stalls selling pumpkin pie and soup.
Bowman says its a matter of raising the product’s profile, pointing to a pumpkin and raspberry pie recipe which was featured recently in a newspaper. “If we can get those sort of things going in early on in the season, then people will buy pumpkins.”
And Whitworth concludes: “The multiples are selling more and more, but it hasn’t plateaued yet; we still haven’t realised the full potential of pumpkins.”
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