Pumpkin Shortage May Impact Thanksgiving Holiday

While most pumpkins in the USA are grown in central Illinois, there are still several farms that harvest pumpkins in Indiana.

It’s pumpkin-selling season, and crowds are flocking to farms to pick out their own jack-o-lanterns.

Americans really might have to use their gourd to track down canned pumpkin later this year.

If you’re counting on pumpkin pie with your traditional Thanksgiving feast, you might want to do the menu planning early. “We won’t have much “reserve” stock – if any at all – to carry us into the new year”.

O’Hearn says there should be enough supply to fill our pumpkin pies through Thanksgiving – but after that, she says, there’s going to be a shortage until the next harvest.

That means when stores sell out, they’ll likely be out until next year’s harvest.

James Jackson, a Co-Owner of Jackson’s Pumpkin Farm, said Monday, Columbus Day weekend is usually the busiest weekend they have, but he loves what he does.

90 percent of sugar pumpkins used to produce canned pumpkin are found in Illinois, but this year’s heavy rain and flooding heavily impacted.

Canned pumpkins come from sugar pumpkins which are more oval, dense, and thick in comparison to decorative pumpkins that are bright, thin, and hollow. Libby’s processes all the pumpkin it buys at a plant in Morton, Ill.