Libby's: Heavy Rains Mean Major Canned Pumpkin Shortage This Holiday Season
Nestle has warned consumers that it might run out of Libby's canned pumpkin pie filling before Thanksgiving. So what happened to all the pumpkin pie filling? Well, heavy rains caused the pumpkin fields in Morton, Illinois to become so muddy that the tractors couldn't drive through the fields during pumpkin harvest time. Libby had to stop picking pumpkins that were sitting in the mud, because the quality was not up to Libby's standards.
"Early in the harvest, it looked like we would have plenty of pumpkin, but Mother Nature had other plans for us," the Swiss food company said on the Web site. Nestle said it will increase planting next year.
Libby's has an 80 percent to 90 percent share of the canned pumpkin market, according to Roz O'Hearn, a Nestle spokeswoman in the U.S. Libby's has a series of recipes for alternatives to pumpkin pie such as Nestle Toll House chocolate chip pie on the Web site. Thanksgiving takes place Nov. 26 in the U.S.
The product is still on shelves in supermarkets in the U.S., though Nestle's inventory is running out. After it does, Nestle will not can any more pumpkins until the next harvest in August 2010, O'Hearn said.
"If it's important to you, you'd best go buy it now," she said. All the pumpkins used by Libby's are planted in about 5,000 to 6,000 acres of farmland near Morton, which got double its normal amount of rain recently, she added.
Nestle's website has all the horrifying details, including a very sad video of the farmers surveying the ruined pumpkin fields.
First it was the Kellogg frozen waffle shortage, and now this. The Eggo shortage we could live with. But no canned pumpkin when it's time to make pumpkin pies? That is an entirely different matter.
Nestle has 
