You Will Be Assimilated By The Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex
If you're going to go down fighting, it might as well taste good
Pumpkin spice lattes and donuts are all well and good, but does the arrival of fall mean everything has to be pumped up with pumpkin?
Yes, apparently it does.
How else to explain grocery store aisles stuffed with seasonal spinoffs such as Kellogg's Pumpkin Pop-Tarts, Hostess Pumpkin Spice Twinkies and Pumpkin Cheerios.
Make your way to the cooler section and you will see the harvest of pumpkin beers hasn't slowed, either, with many arriving at retail a month ago. This year, a new interloper has appeared: Bud Light Pumpkin Spice seltzer, which you can find in a new Fall Flannel variety pack with three other autumnal flavors: Toasted Marshmallow, Maple Pear and Apple Crisp.
I’m fortunate, I suppose; I LIKE Pumpkin Spice. I mean, I REALLY like it. Do I want everything I consume to be flavored or scented with it? Of course not. But there are certainly worse ways to go. For me, there are few flavors in life I enjoy more than Pumpkin Spice. I firmly believe that Pumpkin Pie should be the national dessert and that it should be a year-round thing, not just in the last four months or so of the year. Left to my own devices, I’d have Pumpkin Pie for breakfast- and I have, on many more occasions than I’d care to admit.
Sure, you can judge me. Just rest assured that I don’t give a damn about your scorn and derision. Pumpkin Pie is one of those things that I believe should be the beginning, middle, and end of virtually every meal. I have Pumpkin Pie Spice (several bottles, as a matter of fact) in my spice cabinet year-round. I put it on oatmeal, in yogurt, and just about anything else I can get away with.
Yeah, I know; what was once a habit long ago became an obsession.
But how did we get to this point? How did the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex become an actual thing? And who thought it would be a GREAT idea to market Pumpkin Spice…seltzers?? And face masks?? And…ad infinitum, ad nauseam??
It wasn’t always like this, of course. Once upon a time- and not so very long ago- America managed to get through the latter four months of the year without being saturated in Pumpkin Spice…well, EVERYTHING.
Por ejemplo, did you know that Pumpkin Spice ramen is a thing? I kinda wish I was kidding on that one, but I’m not. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it…and no, I’m not at all sure I want to try it…thank you very much.
It seems as if every year, the PSL-haters decree that the madness must end. And yet, the intense desire for the unique combination of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon continues unabated.
Much of the 21st-century popularity can be attributed to—you guessed it—Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte. Although other coffee companies experimented with the fall flavors during the 1990s, Starbucks put the beverage on the map in 2003. Vox explains that the PSL almost didn't exist because many worried the spices "dominated" the drink, leaving little coffee taste. Consumers didn't seem to care, and the new product launched with huge success. In the years after, customers anxiously waited for the PSL to return every fall so they could get their pumpkin spice fix. Funny enough, Starbucks was making millions of dollars every year from a drink that didn't contain real pumpkin. That changed in 2015 when the corporation began including pumpkin in the mix, along with the spices, caramel, coffee, and (a lot of) sugar.
Since the rise of the Pumpkin Spice Latte, the spice combination has found its way into every area of our lives, from desserts to dog food. If you look hard enough in the fall, there's a pumpkin spiced flavor, scent, or inspired decor everywhere you turn. Yet, Vox reports that the pumpkin spice bubble may have already popped and the trend passed its prime. Once trends reach the level of such mass popularity, it's not long before they go from obsession to overkill. Pumpkin spice may have seen better days because consumers aren't craving the flavor like they used to.
Of course, one person’s idea of “demise” might be another’s “boom.” But, with the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex oozing into ever more products and aspects of American life, it appears Pumpkin Spice is here to stay.
Starbucks convinced the American market that Pumpkin Spice drinks were to be consumed only during the fall, thus increasing demand. That limited availability has, as with McDonald’s McRib sandwich, created an almost cult-like following.
I love Pumpkin Spice, but Starbucks PSL drinks are so cloyingly sweet that I can’t drink them. Still, there’s a significant pent-up demand by the time autumn rolls around. And upstate New York is Ground Zero.
What Forbes once described as a $600 million “Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex,” the business of creating products that feed a fall-flavored obsession is massive, taking the shape of pumpkin-spiced doughnuts and coffee to vodka and candles. And in a region that’s home to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, corn mazes, and apple picking, Hudson Valley and its area businesses have a front-row seat to autumn’s annual pumpkin-spice mania.
“I have had cafés in the past where customers expected us to have pumpkin spice products, so I made sure it was part of my business plan for fall when I opened this shop in June,” says Lucky Sparrow Kitchen chef and owner Renee Alexander, who is debuting a pumpkin-spice latte muffin, soup, flavored coffee syrup, and cookie…at her Margaretville eatery.
She got inquiries about pumpkin spice goods right after Labor Day, and her restaurant’s Instagram poll got over 175 votes for “Yes” to the question of whether to include Pumpkin Spice on the menu.
Alexander herself once had a unique perch from which to watch pumpkin spice-palooza firsthand.
“Having worked in digital marketing for Dunkin’ Donuts, when the PSL [Pumpkin Spice Latte] trend launched in the early 2000s, I can confirm that it is indeed a major national phenomenon,” she says. “But certainly in upstate New York we have a greater need for the warming effects of spices like cinnamon and clove.”
Think of Pumpkin Spice, and what comes to mind? The odds are that you’re thinking of leaves turning, falling temperatures, football games- the things that make autumn in America’s northern tier what it is. But, if you live in San Diego, you have to visualize autumn because the change of seasons means nothing to you.
Through a stroke of marketing genius, companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have co-opted an entire season and made it their own. Other companies have done something similar, whether it’s candles, beer, cereal, hard seltzer, or a long list of products limited only by imagination and science.
In New York State, f’rinstance, there’s a trend toward non-dairy PSL products. PSL-flavored donuts sales have grown 20% over last year and show no sign of slowing down. The interest in some PSL-flavored or -scented products is so strong that some businesses plan for PSL products earlier each year.
Those sworn enemies of the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex may tend to dismiss PSL fans as “basic,” but I’m OK with that. If it tastes good- and it does- I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks about it. I may find Starbucks PSL far too sweet for my taste, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many other Pumpkin Spice products that I do enjoy.
So how did a mash-up of spices originally from Asia wind up becoming the calling card for an American season? Cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon were once more valuable than some precious metals.
Caucasian food wasn't always known for its absence of strong seasoning.
Europe used to be a very spicy place. At least, it was if you were rich.
Aromatic cloves, ginger and nutmeg from Asia were considered rare and luxuriant treasures through much of Europe's history. In the first century, Roman scholar Pliny the Elder tallied the cost of cinnamon as fifteen times the price of silver. In medieval Europe, intense spicing was prized in foods both savory and sweet.
The “original steak sauce” of 14th century Europe, wrote Princeton medieval specialist Jessica Savage, was a cinnamon-ginger-clove sauce called cameline, sometimes augmented “Tournais-style” with nutmeg to make a seasoning mix quite similar to modern pumpkin spice.
During winter months, medieval European physicians prescribed the use of warming spices like ginger, clove and cinnamon to accentuate the “hot” and “humid” qualities of roasted meat.
But the spices were costly to obtain, and Middle Eastern traders closely guarded the secrets of where they procured their cinnamon, pepper, mace, cloves and nutmeg.
European explorers and other opportunists undertook distressingly perilous voyages to cut out the middleman. For example, Christopher Columbus wasn’t looking to discover the New World when he arrived in the Bahamas in 1492; he wanted to find a sea route to Asia’s pepper and cinnamon.
The search for these spices is a sad story with subtexts of greed, murder, thievery, and all manner of underhanded behavior interwoven throughout it.
Kinda like the Trump Administration, only without the bitter taste of betrayal, corruption, incompetence, and lawlessness.
Ah, but I digress….
By the 17th century, spices had become more available within Europe, causing prices to plummet. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of almost completely erasing the social status that spices had once conferred due to their prohibitive costs. Now that they were available even to commoners, the wealthy elites turned away from exotic spices such as cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. In general, spices had become too inexpensive and readily accessible for the rich to continue using them as a means of social distinction.
Most European cuisines evolved considerably over time. The goal became to “really taste the ingredients,” a concept familiar to anyone who subscribes to today’s farm-to-table movement. Cooking for the wealthy elites became an exercise in declaring and revealing the intense flavors in lavishly pricy cuts of meats.
The aromatic flavors of Asia were transferred into desserts, cakes, and mulled winter drinks. Nutmegs and cloves became central to European baking traditions. The ancient medical belief that the “warming spices” aided digestion helped to weave them into winter holiday traditions throughout the continent.
Cooking and baking became increasingly feminized once the Industrial Revolution began to solidify gender roles. The prevailing theory is that desserts and sweet aromatic drinks became “infantilized” among wealthy Western elites, much as had happened with chocolate.
Tastemakers and social elites defined sweetness and aromatic spices as the tastes of social inferiors, a trend that continues today. This prejudice might help to explain why PSL-haters feel so strongly in their disdain for all things Pumpkin Spice.
Of course, those who enjoy Pumpkin Spice and worship at the feet of the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex don’t care what the snobs think of them OR their obsession. In fact, to them, PSL may well be the single best decision that Starbucks ever made.
It’s not very often that a company makes a decision that lands with such a tremendous impact across the American economy and culture. The Pumpkin Spice Latte was that sort of groundbreaking moment.
The PSL almost didn’t exist. Executives nearly binned the drink during development for the exact quality that has made it beloved to consumers. “A number of us thought it was a beverage so dominated by a flavor other than coffee that it didn’t put Starbucks’ coffee in the best light,” Tim Kern, a Starbucks founder and former executive for more than 20 years, told Quartz Magazine in 2013.
It was 2003. Seasonal drinks were just becoming a thing and Starbucks was on a mission to recreate the success of their limited-edition winter drinks, Peppermint Mocha and Eggnog Latte, according to SeattleMet. But how to bottle the feeling of fall in a corrugated cardboard cup? Pumpkin pie polled near the bottom in a customer survey of 20 potential fall flavors run by Seattle company’s “Liquid Lab” run by Director of Espresso Peter Dukes.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm, Dukes thought a pumpkin drink was worth pursuing “since there wasn’t anything around pumpkin at the time,” he told The Daily Meal in 2013. Pumpkin was among the four flavors prototyped, which led to a now infamous R&D session in which coffee scientists poured over pumpkin pie and espresso, deliberating over how to turn a slice of pie into a latte.
The decision they made would later lead to the first of the drink’s many controversies: the original PSL recipe doesn’t contain any pumpkin. Before the drink was revamped to include some actual hot squash in 2015, the orange color came from artificial dye, while “pie spices,” nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves make up the drink’s flavor.
While Starbucks was pondering the Pumpkin Spice Latte, there were other options in the hopper. For example, would the Cinnamon Streusel Latte, the caramel-chocolate or orange spiced drinks under consideration at the time have had the same commercial and cultural impact as the Pumpkin Spice Latte did?
We’ll never know, will we?
Starbucks initially rolled out PSL in autumn 2003 in 100 stores in Vancouver, BC, and Washington, DC. The result was almost instant collective addiction. To the company’s surprise, it couldn’t keep up with demand and expedited far more inventory to those stores than initially anticipated. As a result, PSL far outstripped sales projection and sales records previously set by the Peppermint Mocha Latte and the Eggnog Latte.
Starbucks introduced PSL in all locations in fall 2004. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. In PSL’s first decade, customers purchased 200 MILLION drinks, making it Starbucks’ top-selling drink.
In 2019, CNBC estimated that Starbucks had sold 424 million cups of PSL. At $5.25 for a grande size, that works out to…wait for it…almost $2.25 BILLION. If that doesn’t impress you, try this one: At 12 fluid ounces per drink, that works out to 5,088,000,000 fl. oz.- or 39,750,000 gallons. That’s 60.23 Olympic swimming pools full of PSL. Don’t forget your swim goggles.
I’m not sure what all of those numbers prove, other than Starbucks has essentially managed to raise cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon from, if not the dead, then certainly from obscurity.
Just as the National Football League owns a day of the week, Starbucks can now claim ownership of an entire season.
Starbuck’s Director of Espresso (yes, that’s an actual job title), Peter Dukes, said in a 2014 blog post on the company’s website that “Pumpkin Spice Latte has become more than just a beverage. It has become a harbinger of the season.”
That’s one of the more sizable understatements you’ll run across today.
Through agile marketing, fortunate timing, and knowing that they had a quality product, Starbucks started the PSL snowball rolling. What’s happened since has led to significant success for the company and its shareholders. Beyond that, the PSL trend has spread throughout the economy and into areas that one might not have generally associated with Pumpkin Spice.
Beer? Face Masks? Hard Seltzers? Cereals? Facial Tissue? Toothpicks? The list is long and exhaustive- and it continues to grow.
Hence the rise of the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex, which has grown from virtually zero into a multi-BILLION segment of the American economy in less than two decades. Its continued growth is limited only by the imagination of entrepreneurs willing to push the edge of the envelope and consumers who seem to have no boundaries.
For those of you who HATE PSL and all things Pumpkin Spice, you may rest assured in the knowledge that it’ll be over soon. December? January? February? It will end eventually, though I, for one, continue to believe that Congress should pass a law making Pumpkin Pie our national dessert. They should also mandate that it be available everywhere 12 months a year.
Hey, if you’re going to be assimilated by the Pumpkin Spice Industrial Complex, at least you’re going to be incorporated into something that tastes good. Just be sure to ask for some whipped cream.
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