Pumpkin Spice Products Start to Debut in the Summer

Pumpkin spice is a staple of fall, with pumpkin spice flavored drinks and foods like lattes — and even beer — popping up on cafe menus and supermarket shelves right around the time carved pumpkins shamble their way onto suburban porches.

But pumpkin spice products crept into the summer this year. 

Well-known companies like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Peet and Tim’s and Tim Horton’s debuted their pumpkin spice drinks in August, eschewing the traditional September release.

When 7-Eleven debuted its pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin coffee on Aug. 1, the company boasted in press materials that the release came “earlier than ever before.”

"We know our customers wait all year long for their favorite fall flavors…so we decided to break out the pumpkin a little bit early this year," Dennis Phelps, 7-Eleven's senior vice president of merchandising, said in a statement. "It may not quite feel like fall outside yet, but it sure can taste like fall as we enjoy the first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season."

The trade publication Restaurant Dive cited data from SpotOn, a software firm that caters to the restaurant industry, showing 602 pumpkin spice flavored products were added to restaurant menus between July 7 and Aug. 8.

Almost two-thirds of those products are drinks.

Chains are releasing pumpkin spice treats and drinks in the summer because customers are demanding it, Dave Skena, chief brand officer for Krispy Kreme, told Restaurant Business Magazine. 

“Consumers seem to want it earlier every year and they are voting with their pocketbooks,” he said. “Maybe the fact that this summer is hotter makes them hopeful that cooler weather is ahead when they get that first taste of pumpkin. We asked ourselves ‘are we jumping the shark’ this year, and the answer was ‘no.’”

Chains have always stocked up on pumpkin spice products in the summer ahead of the fall surge, Shea Halligan, SVP of sales enablement and client experience at Westrock Coffee, told the trade publication Restaurant Dive.

“[Pumpkin] remains a popular offering and we tend to see this same level of spike from year to year,” he said.