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Where's the pumpkin?

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By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: October 26, 2009

TAMPA - For a second year, devotees of open-and-pour canned pumpkin mixes may look to their grocery store shelves and see emptiness.

There's a shortage, caused by a perfect storm of pumpkin problems.

First, one company - Nestle-owned Libby's - controls more than 80 percent of the nation's supply of pumpkin pie mix.

Second, Libby's grows its pumpkins in a 5,000-acre patch near Morton, Ill., population 17,000, a former vaudeville stop town with a Main Street and one volunteer firehouse: "Utopia if you ask me," said village Mayor Norman Durflinger.

Third, cold weather and heavy rain damaged crops and delayed the harvest in Morton, outside Peoria.

It's not a problem with the pumpkins used for carving scary faces at Halloween.

"These cooking pumpkins are normally yellowish, oblong pumpkins," said Durflinger, adding the village canceled its 13th annual Punkin Chuckin gourd-throwing contest earlier this month. Current record: 4,491 feet, set by an air cannon in 1998.

Fields normally used for the competition remain wet and have pumpkins waiting for harvest, according to an Oct. 6 apology letter to residents from the Morton Punkin Chuckin Committee.

Morton's pumpkin problems plague the pie-mix supply chain nationwide. Grocers have cans some days, but warn of frequent outages.

"There's a shortage, and we'll feel it, too," said Nicole LeBeau, spokeswoman for Sweetbay Supermarkets, which pledged to keep prices stable.

Publix secured a supply of canned pumpkin mix, "but it's going to be tight" through Thanksgiving, said spokeswoman Shannon Patten. Three stores near downtown Tampa lacked canned pumpkin last week, although trucks were scheduled to resupply.

Prices are up a bit, too, with 15-ounce cans carrying a suggested retail price of $1.59 and 29-ounce cans $2.59. Libby's spokeswoman Roz O'Hearn also blamed higher prices on the rising cost of steel.

Although Morton may remain the Pumpkin Capital of the World, baking from scratch is a fading practice there, too.

"Everybody uses the mix now," Durflinger said. "No one has time anymore."

Even in utopia.

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

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