Yes, There Really Is a Pumpkin Shortage

Sorry, conspiracy theorists, but there really is a pumpkin shortage. At least, for those pumpkins specially grown to be canned and sold to make pie.

On Monday, the entertaining, subversive food blog Eat Me Daily made the same error that climate-change deniers make when they cite a cold snap as evidence that the earth isn't heating up: mistaking anecdote for evidence.

That site's Raphael Brion (whom I interviewed in August), made a hard declaration: Nestlé's announcement last month that there was a pumpkin shortage was "a lame attempt to goose sales." The media played along, he added, by "parroting the news."

His evidence amounted to a couple of trips to stores that had plenty of canned pumpkin available. From that, he wrote, "it's clear" that the whole thing was "just a deceptive marketing ploy to generate buzz and extra sales."

Sorry, no. As several commenters on the Eat Me Daily post noted, lots of grocers have run out of canned pumpkin, even if some have been able to stockpile the product.

Nonetheless, the post got heavy rotation on Monday, and was even cited by the New York Times' Diner's Journal blog.