There is a canned pumpkin shortage going on – MY GOD what has the world come to?

My Sister called me last evening to ask if I knew anything about a pumpkin shortage. I told her I of course had no idea what she was talking about. She continues the story, she is in Kroger and there is nary a can of pumpkin to be had. She then goes on to tell me that the manager tells her of a canned pumpkin shortage going on. Sometimes I wonder if my Sister and I were actually born in Missouri, the show me state. Although that is not an official slogan of the State of Missouri it is common throughout the state and is used on Missouri license plates. He could have been speaking directly to my Sister and I when congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying. To me it seems to display a certain self-deprecating stubbornness and devotion to simple common sense.

Sorry I got sidetracked there for a moment. Anyway, my Sister and I both have an undiscussed relationship with that slogan. I knew before she even said it, she had gone to Wal-Mart looking for that canned pumpkin. Not believing the story of only one store manager she was off, exactly the same thing I would have done. I would be off to the next place that might have the product I am looking for. Of course the Wal-Mart was fresh out of pumpkin as well and she got a similar explanation about the lack of canned pumpkin. She called me on her way home to tell me of this. I got on the internet and found that there is indeed a pumpkin shortage. Seems that Nestlé, whose Libby brand is far and away the nation’s most popular canned pumpkin, announced that it might not have enough pumpkin for our pies. How in the world could this happen. I thought for sure there was enough geographical redundancy in our food supply to eliminate such things. I mean, some times the Red Delicious apples I eat come from South and Central America – how could we possibly have a shortage of anything.

Seems that their calculations indicated, on November 17th, that there might not be enough inventory of canned Libby’s pumpkin, this as we were approaching the Thanksgiving. That is according to Paul Bakus, the vice president for Nestlé’s baking division. I am quite stunning that this guy still has a job. It seems that the heavy rains in the Midwestern states caused the problems. I was also unaware that most commercial pumpkins are grown in those Midwestern states. I am told that soggy fields have made it difficult for farmers to get harvesting equipment to the pumpkins. Really, really that is the answer they have – hell monster trucks have flotation tires that come from the agriculture industry. It is really hard for me to believe this. Seems that as a result, the harvest that usually begins in the Midwestern pumpkin fields in August, was late in coming. Acres of pumpkins sit still unharvested in Morton, Ill., which the company calls the “pumpkin capital of the world.” Fungus is a big problem, so it is likely many of those pumpkins will be plowed under. Plowed under, Really…. Really?

Because the supply was already dangerously low, in part due to the lousy pumpkin harvest of 2008 there is just not a lot of stock left in the warehouses. As is always the case, one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure. Seems that what is bad news for the commercial growers has been fantastic news for the organic pumpkin concerns on the West Coast. Since Nestlé controls 85% of the canned pumpkin market so when things go bad for Nestlé things go bad for consumers. The organic pumpkin market makes up only about 3 or 4 percent of the overall canned pumpkin market, a fraction of the market really. I found that in Oregon the crop was so good that organic pumpkins are able to fill at least a little of the gap left by the Libby shortage. Good for them. Some might even say, so what. I will use my family’s traditional pumpkin pie recipe and you can make your own purée. I hear it is not a fast process, but some say it will do in a pinch. Do in a pinch my ass! Like I am going to go through whatever process that takes a whole pumpkin and turn it into a pie, right. I order my pies from those who make them, if they have a supply shortage they can tell me I can not have that pie or just charge me more for it. Like I am going to make a pie, makes me laugh just thinking about it.

In a day when corporate backups of data reside in two different parts of the country and this Nestlé’s guy can’t figure out how to ensure a single event in one geographic area does not destroy the canned pumpkin part of their business. If this fellow worked for me he would be looking for a job. We Americans are due canned pumpkin anytime we want it and I am righteously indignant that in the year 2009 that I can’t have every damn thing I want! Seems that my Missouri born Sister, while I was writing this, drove to a small store in West Liberty and has found some canned pumpkin. The Thoman’s Market was the store that saved her life. While she did pay 2.49 a can, for something that is a buck at Wal-Mart Thoman’s was the store able to provide the product and she bought 16 cans. Yes that was sixteen cans of pumpkin. I can say without a doubt that I have never bought a single can of pumpkin, let alone 16. She tells me that they were in line with a couple of cans when she realized that with a shortage on she better stock up and went back and bought all 16 cans that they had on the shelves. 16 cans of pumpkin, I am not sure what is wrong with her.

Well if you need pumpkin you may have some problems getting it. Seems that 2 years of problems with the crop volume have decimated the supply. I am hopeful that the small organic growers can take advantage of the big dogs blunders.

I am quite sure that I will not hear anything else about a pumpkin shortage, unless my Village Inn tells he I can’t get one when I go in to order it.