Plump Pumpkin Provision Prevents Pre-Halloween Horror Show
29th October 2018
A Midlands logistics business has come to the aid of frightened farmers who faced the freakish 2018 weather that caused a scary scarcity of ‘monster’ pumpkins, the ghoulish gourds carved by millions of families every year.
Coventry-based IPP has rallied behind its pumpkin growing customers this Halloween by moving pallet deliveries to different UK farms in order to source supplies to meet stringent retail quotas.
The unseasonably warm summer, hot on the heels of a freezing spring and the so–called ‘Beast from the East,’ has meant monster and carver pumpkin numbers are down by tens of thousands, with the majority of gourds being the smaller varieties with tougher outer skins.
IPP, part of Pooling Partners, works with market gardeners and growers across the country to deliver the gourds into the nation’s supermarkets.
Two of its growers, K J Curson and Barfoots of Botley Ltd, deliver between two and three million pumpkins to the retail sector ahead of Halloween, all of which are carried on IPP pool pallets.
“It’s been tough to find the volume for monsters and the carvers,” said David Cooper, logistics manager for Barfoots. “We normally source our larger pumpkins from our farms in Hampshire, but we have had to look to other farms in East Anglia and Lincolnshire to fulfil the demand as we were around 30,000 short.”
During the year Barfoots use in excess of 180,000 pallets, almost 40,000 of which are sent during the peak months of September and October for the popular pumpkin market.