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The economics of pumpkin patches

thehustle.co

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Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#31

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

jjmellon wrote: post #24
irrational wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, the chart clearly showed that 50-75% of the pumpkins cannot be sold.

The chart shows that 25% to 50% are not "capable" of being sold. I think this refers to losses in the field, such as unripe, overripe, insect or animal damage, etc. However, the article ignores the fact that many of the ones that are capable of being sold are never sold.

Is there a different type of pumpkin for pumpkin puree? Or could they not be used as animal feed?

And why can't you sell the seeds? The article quotes ~$100/1k seeds. That's $0.10 per seed. There are ~250 seeds per pumpkin - that's $25 per pumpkin. What am I missing?

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#32

Post by Isamu »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #31
jjmellon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chart shows that 25% to 50% are not "capable" of being sold. I think this refers to losses in the field, such as unripe, overripe, insect or animal damage, etc. However, the article ignores the fact that many of the ones that are capable of being sold are never sold.

Is there a different type of pumpkin for pumpkin puree? Or could they not be used as animal feed? And why can't you sell the seeds? The article quotes ~$100/1k seeds. That's $0.10 per seed. There are ~250 seeds per pumpkin - that's $25 per pumpkin. What am I missing?

The small “sugar pumpkins” are generally used for canning. I think those are harvested with much less waste.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#33

Post by madiator »

mc32 wrote: post #26
madiator wrote: post #21

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, it has a great social aspects to it: people get together for carving, there are parties, and kids have so much fun. But the environmental and health sides of it mindboggling. We are completely fine growing so many pumpkins only for them to be carved and thrown away; we buy a ton of costumes that are worn once and go to the landfill; and we buy so many candies a…

They are renewable and compostable —both things are often not possible to achieve in other activities. Those not used can actually be used for baking pumpkin pies —though probably slightly different from regular pie pumpkins, but good enough. So all things considered, this should not even register vs things like other festivals where there are tons of trash left over.

> They are renewable and compostable —both things are often not possible to achieve in other activities.

I was thinking and wondering if all those 1000s of acres could be used to grow something else, which people could eat and not throw away. :)

But you make a great point. It is better that we carve pumpkins, which are compostable, than use some kind of non-compostable stuff.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#34

Post by madiator »

syedkarim wrote: post #25
madiator wrote: post #21

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, it has a great social aspects to it: people get together for carving, there are parties, and kids have so much fun. But the environmental and health sides of it mindboggling. We are completely fine growing so many pumpkins only for them to be carved and thrown away; we buy a ton of costumes that are worn once and go to the landfill; and we buy so many candies a…

Can’t a similar thing be said about Christmas, Easter, etc?

People buy a lot of stuff during Christmas, but they get used.

EDIT: I think so.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#35

Post by madiator »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29
madiator wrote: post #21

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, it has a great social aspects to it: people get together for carving, there are parties, and kids have so much fun. But the environmental and health sides of it mindboggling. We are completely fine growing so many pumpkins only for them to be carved and thrown away; we buy a ton of costumes that are worn once and go to the landfill; and we buy so many candies a…

> We are completely fine growing so many pumpkins only for them to be carved and thrown away; As far as entertainment goes, carving a pumpkin and then letting it quickly compost away is relatively low impact. You could always argue that the most environmentally friendly option is to do nothing at all and cause nothing to be produced or moved around, but that's hardly a realistic argument. Criticizing every activity t…

I hear you. I am not criticizing Halloween, since I take part in doing all of these. I did mention costumes going to landfill though, not just pumpkins.

What I mentioned doesn't have to be taken to extreme to say nothing should be produced and moved around! By that analogy, the only way to save the environment is to stop living.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#36

Post by rootusrootus »

syedkarim wrote: post #25
madiator wrote: post #21

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, it has a great social aspects to it: people get together for carving, there are parties, and kids have so much fun. But the environmental and health sides of it mindboggling. We are completely fine growing so many pumpkins only for them to be carved and thrown away; we buy a ton of costumes that are worn once and go to the landfill; and we buy so many candies a…

Can’t a similar thing be said about Christmas, Easter, etc?

Christmas so far outranks Halloween in consumer spending, I can't imagine anyone worrying much about the paltry 10B we will spend in 2021 on Halloween. Christmas will be 100x bigger.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#37

Post by rootusrootus »

madiator wrote: post #34
syedkarim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t a similar thing be said about Christmas, Easter, etc?

People buy a lot of stuff during Christmas, but they get used. EDIT: I think so.

If I had to guess, probably 80% of the stuff I've received over the years as Christmas gifts ends up getting used very little and then unceremoniously put on a shelf or in the trash. And that may be a generous estimate.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#38

Post by jonhohle »

madiator wrote: post #34
syedkarim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t a similar thing be said about Christmas, Easter, etc?

People buy a lot of stuff during Christmas, but they get used. EDIT: I think so.

We let our kids wear their costumes for play the rest of the year. They get worn more in a few play sessions than on Halloween.

Also, roasted pumpkin seeds are easy, healthy, and delicious.

I wonder if after growing, harvesting, shipping, etc. a Halloween pumpkin is carbon negative.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#39

Post by breckenedge »

tomrod wrote: post #8
monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Here is my thought process: > - Move your barrow under a camera. Minimum $5k, closer to $25k, to set physical hardware, network, queueing line and instructions > - It would take a picture and through image recognition identify and classify pumpkins based on size. $100k+ capex to get implemented model on hardware, sufficient training samples + training expertise, QA, etc. Ongoing opex for maintenance (sun, weather), m…

True that’s a steep one time cost for one patch, but then sell the process and tech to your competitors.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#40

Post by ip26 »

odyssey7 wrote: post #6
david38 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight is the simplest by far. 50, Otherwise, build a box, and the smallest box that fit the pumpkin determines its size.

I wonder if they run into issues selling by weight. Customers are usually paying more for the visual size, not however much water a particular item has in it. Does the weight increase linearly with size? If it’s especially hollow, probably not, while an especially large and hollow pumpkin may be uncommon and should be sold for a high price. Edit: I guess a better question would be, can you predict desirable carving q…

Weight is beautifully simple, but the process of unloading 100lbs of pumpkin to be weighted & loading them back in your cart might be a significant driver of the queue latency.

Grocery stores pipeline the unloading & loading steps.

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