Pumpkin yields have held up “relatively well” ahead of Halloween when compared with last year, despite farms experiencing the hottest summer on record.
Leading produce supplier Barfoots said this year’s pumpkin season, although bearing slightly smaller fruits, had maintained overall yields and volumes.
Ketan Dave, the grower’s sourcing director, said the heat this summer presented “a number of challenges, with hot and dry conditions early in the summer impacting the crop”.
“As a result, fruit sizes at harvest were generally smaller, although overall yields and volumes held up relatively well compared to last year,” Dave added. “There was a significant amount of pressure on the farm to irrigate during the heatwave, before the weather eventually turned wet.”
Another pumpkin grower, Emily French, owner of Foxes Farm Produce in Essex, echoed Dave’s sentiment, telling The Grocer it had been a “strange year weather-wise”. She added “more temperate” weather was preferable for growing pumpkins as they “struggle without any water which makes it tricky”.
Read more: Waitrose set to double British butternut squash harvest after ‘perfect’ summer
Foxes Farm Produce had seen its earliest harvest in 15 years of operating, with the first crops harvested in July.
However, she added that “the quality of pumpkins is really good this year”.
Barfoots’ Dave said sales of pumpkins had remained strong, with a rise in demand for “speciality and culinary pumpkins”.
It comes as Waitrose has said it expects to double its butternut squash harvest this year following “perfect conditions”, despite growing climate fears.
Following a switch to a “more hardy variety” by long-standing supplier Barfoots, the supermarket giant said this autumn marked the first time British butternut squash had been available on such a large scale.
“This is a very exciting year for British butternut squash. Historically our colder, wetter and changeable climate has made it impossible to grow at scale in the UK,” said Barfoots marketing manager Kim Barfoot-Brace.
No comments yet