Scary news: Pumpkins could run out at Halloween

IF you were hoping to carve a pumpkin this Halloween, you may need to buy it soon.

Suppliers warn that poor summer weather has halved crop yields – which could lead to shortages in the run-up to October 31.

Jon Barfoot, from fruit and vegetable firm Barfoots, said that despite a promising start to the growing season, heavy rain in August had dampened hopes of a bumper harvest.

It meant the pumpkins spent a month sitting on wet soil, causing many of them to rot.

‘Retailers don’t take any fruit with minor blemishes or soft spots because these progress into full-blown issues in the depots and stores, where they metamorphose into pumpkin soup,’ he told The Grocer magazine. ‘So yields will be about 50 per cent of the originally planned crop.’

The pumpkin industry is now worth around £6million, and an estimated 10million are grown in the UK every year. Sainsbury’s says it expects customers to buy around a million pumpkins from its stores in the week leading up to Halloween.

But shoppers could face relatively high prices, due to extra costs in the supply chain caused by high wastage. ‘The mood in the market for predaatory pricing this year is low,’ Mr Barfoot added.

Despite the potential shortfall, shoppers lookingng for a more unusual Halloween treat may be in luck. Ghostly-looking polar bear pumpkins – also so known as albino or snowball pumpkins – are to be sold at Morrisons this year.

It is the first time a British supermarket has madede the white squashes widely available. Grower Steve ve Whitworth, from Cambridgeshire, said they were re ‘ideal for carving Halloween lanterns’.

While their skin is white, the flesh of the pumpkins ns – which cost £3 each – remains a familiar orange.