did you know there's a pumpkin shortage?

[grasswire]

The 2009 and 2008 crops were badly damaged by weather.

Today I was in my local Kroger's and went to see if they had gotten any solid pack punkin in. The distributor's rep was in the aisle, and I struck up a conversation with him in front of the empty shelves. He looked all around, and then told me a secret. He had just delivered cases of it over to the Safeway store a few blocks around the street. "I could get in trouble for this!" he said.

He indicated that I oughta hurry to get any.

Well, that will have to wait for tomorrow.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Not around here, there isn't...

I've been hitting the farm stands for a month or so stocking up on squashes.

Sugar pumpkins, cheese pumkins, pie pumpkins, cindarella pumpkins, buttercup squash, butternut squash... Got a freezer full of pumpkin glop to surprise everyone with pumpkin pie in March.

The really bad crops were elsewhere, affecting the national supply and the big processors, but our local farms weren't that bad off.

[Phentex]

2. We're talking about this in the eggo thread, too...

no shortage here. Wonder if I should hoard, hee hee. :)

[Denninmi]

3. Mostly hype.

I think its pretty funny, reall. Libby's had a couple of bad crop years in a row at the Illinois plant where they grow all of the "pumpkins" which are actually a strain of Cucurbita moschata (butternut squash) known as "Dickinson Select". So, their supply of the canned stuff is down. But, it seems to be plentiful in every store I've been at around this area (metro Detroit).

HOWEVER, every farmers market and grocery store is bursting with fresh squash this time of year, and they keep them in storage for months. Just buy a fresh one and roast or nuke it, IMO.

And, if they run out of ALL squash and pumpkin, there are always sweet potatos!

I think they're just trying to sell more of it by creating hype.