Pumpkin puree in short supply
If you take a trip to a local grocery store, you might find a limit on the number of cans of pumpkin puree you can purchase – if you can find it on the shelf at all.
If you’re worried that you won’t be able to make pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, and your other favorite pumpkin treats throughout the holiday season, there’s good news:
Your favorite autumn baking staple has not gone the way of toilet paper and dry yeast at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canned pumpkin should soon appear on store shelves.
Libby’s Pumpkin – which can harvest 500,000 pumpkins a day into cans during harvesting season – announced that the harvest was delayed this year because of weather conditions, so delivery to stores has been pushed back.
“You can expect to see pumpkin on shelves in mid-October,” said Justin Corrado, Libby’s Brand Manager. “Timing is key when picking pumpkins to ensure maximum flavor. This will not affect the overall availability or quality of Libby’s pumpkin throughout the season.”
The Giant Eagle in Washington is awaiting delivery of canned pumpkin puree, but currently there is none available at the store.
“Normally, it would be here by this time. We’ve been getting it in sporadically,” said Keith Zerishnek, grocery manager at the Washington store. “A couple of weeks ago, we got a few cases, but we haven’t since. I’ll order 50 to 100 cases, and maybe three come in.”
Their last pumpkin puree delivery arrived on Sunday, “and it was gone in no time,” he said.
Zerishnek said the store has received the small, 15 ounce cans – the large cans have been almost impossible to come by.
The Uniontown Giant Eagle store received a pallet of pumpkin puree Thursday morning, and limited customers to four cans per purchase.
“We’ve had lots of calls from people asking if it’s in stock,” said Amanda Malvito, human resources manager at the Uniontown store. “We don’t know when we’ll get it in. We order it, and if they ship it, we get it. We just don’t know.”
Ninety percent of the pumpkins grown in the United States are farmed within an 80-mile radius of Peoria, Ill.
Libby’s, which is owned by Nestle Food, contracts with independent farmers who grow Libby Select – a sweet, meaty, oval, tan-colored variety of Dickinson pumpkins – on 5,000 acres near the company’s Morton, Ill., processing plant.
The pumpkin is a member of the gourd family that thrives in hot, dry growing conditions. Farmers experienced a rain delay when it was time to plant pumpkin crops, so the pumpkins were planted and harvested later than normal, and it’s taking longer for the pumpkin to get to stores.
Said Zerishnek, “We keep our fingers crossed that it comes in soon.”