Tesco’s pumpkin grower has confirmed this year’s harvest has been better than predicted despite any impact of the UK’s drought over the summer months.
Its partner and one of the UK’s largest pumpkin growers, Oakely Farms claimed “there is full availability of great quality this year.”
Oakley Farms operations director Steve Whitworth said: “While we had the summer heatwave and subsequent downpour in early September, we’ve had no issues with our pumpkins.”
This comes as the Big 4 grocer is set to roll out pumpkins across its stores from this week in time for Halloween festivities.
Tesco pumpkin buyer, Emily Hampson added: “The quality of the pumpkins that have started arriving at our stores this week are as good as ever and we have a wide variety of choices available.
“Interest in Halloween continues to grow and last year we saw an all-time record demand for pumpkins. This year we anticipate at least equaling that and thanks to our close partnership with Oakley Farms we are on track to do just that.”
Tesco and Oakley Farms collaboration also looks to tackle food waste through donating surplus pumpkins to food waste charities such as FareShare.
In a bid to help its shoppers reduce any waste, the leading retailer is also encouraging customers to use their pumpkins to feed garden wildlife, including feeding larger birds with its seeds and turning the carved pumpkin into a hanging bird feeder.
