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The pursuit of pumpkin

While pumpkin flourishes as a seasonal ingredient, it has yet to conquer savory dishes.

October 31, 2007

While pumpkin has moved outside of its traditional Thanksgiving-pie role, it hasn't traveled too far in the fast-casual segment, branching out mostly with baked goods and hot beverage items.

Maria Caranfa, director of Chicago-based Mintel Menu Insights, said fast casual accounts for 13 percent of pumpkin-flavored items offered in the restaurant industry, holding the No. 3 spot behind fine dining and family-midscale. Ten pumpkin-flavored offerings were found on fast-casual menus in the fourth quarter of 2006, compared to six during the same period in 2005.

Though a seemingly small increase, "probably about half the fast-casual restaurants that we track added pumpkin," she said.

A recent review of fast-casual menus revealed 16 offerings, with muffins and lattes

most commonly offered.

More innovative items draw inspiration from the mixture of pumpkin and other foods such as cream cheese, Caranfa said. For instance, Starbucks offers its Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin and Einstein Bros. Noah's Bagels has Pumpkin Cream Cheese for its Pumpkin Bagel.

But increased growth may be in store for pumpkin based on its versatility.

"Like other types of squashes, it can be ground and put into muffin mixes or pancakes,"

Caranfa said.

Suzy Badaracco, founder and president of Culinary Tides, said pumpkin has grown in popularity because it has moved into other segments.

"I don't think there's more pumpkin pies on the market," she said, but the flavor is moving into alcohol, hot beverages, sauces and sweet offerings. "Pumpkin cheesecake did not exist probably 10 years ago, so it's kind of spreading its little tentacles. But it's not moving real fast. It's infiltrating very slowly."

Pumpkin pioneers

On the savory side of the palate, Zivaz, a Tucson, Ariz.-based Mexican bistro, uses pipian sauce featuring pumpkin seeds, herbs and cheese in some of its dishes.

The newly launched McCafés in Japan offer a pumpkin soup. And at Croutons, a fast-casual concept on the West Coast, customers can choose a pumpkin lemongrass soup.

Badaracco said these savory squash dishes are exceptions and attributes their presence on fast-casual menus to location and ethnic trends.

"In America, we tend to use (pumpkin) sweet," she said. "Mexico, South America, South Africa, India and Japan use pumpkin savory. So if you look at anything ethnic coming onto menus, that's where you're going to find pumpkin in a savory format."

Soup is one menu segment where pumpkin could make inroads with savory flavors.

Au Bon Pain created its Harvest Pumpkin Soup five or six years ago and has brought it back every fall, said Ed Frechette, vice president of marketing.

"We're pretty well known for our soups anyway, so when you look at different places

to use fall, seasonal products, it's only a natural that we would try a squash or pumpkin

soup," he said.

Sales for the soup explode as soon as it is added to the menu, typically in early September or as the weather turns cool. During its season, the item achieves top-six status among Au Bon Pain's soups, Frechette said, coming in behind staples such as clam chowder, broccoli cheddar and chicken noodle.

Gaining ground?

While pumpkin seems to be stuck in seasonality, experts say it could be poised to move beyond those boundaries — though that leap may be slow in coming.

The pumpkin season begins in mid-October and runs through late November, Caranfa said. But many beverages and baked goods are beginning to launch much earlier. For example, in early September, Starbucks introduced its Pumpkin Spice Latte, pumpkin muffins and breads.

"Before Labor Day's kind of early for pumpkin," she said. "But what it also tells you is pumpkin is popular and consumers are willing to have it other than October, November, Halloween and Thanksgiving."

Caranfa expects pumpkin to appear on menus more frequently in coming years.

"You might see them in more nontraditional applications, probably more soups," she said. "Someone might even come up with a sandwich on pumpkin bread."

Au Bon Pain's pumpkin soup outlasts the fall season and even overlaps into the new year, Frechette said. Though the company receives requests year round, the soup will remain a seasonal offering.

"It's a keeper for sure in the fall," he said. "But we have so many varieties we want to rotate in, that means we have to rotate some out."

The impetus for a shift to year-round menu inclusion will be more specific health benefits or a restaurant who will champion the pumpkin's cause, Badaracco said. Medical research has shown eating pumpkin may lower the risk of cancer, heart disease and cataracts because it contains high levels of antioxidant vitamins C and E and carotenes.

"It isn't a consumer issue; right now, (pumpkins are) just being overlooked," Badaracco said. "There's lots of things supporting it to come forward. What it really needs is a restaurant or food company to actually go ahead and pledge to it."

Food & Beverage