The economics of pumpkin patches • Hacker News Board

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#51

Post by mateo411 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #50

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…

A time honored practice when carving pumpkins is to roast the seeds in your oven with oil, salt, and pepper. They make a fantastic snack.

Absolutely! And then if the pumpkin is from the jack-o-latern is still good, you can make pumpkin pie.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#52

Post by Rastonbury » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #2

I like how the article takes a hard turn from statistics: > Americans are expected to spend a record $10B+ on Halloween items in 2021, up from $8B last year — and pumpkins are a big player: Among the 65% of Americans celebrating Halloween this year, 44% (~94m people) plan to carve one. Straight to vague generalities: > While pumpkins can readily be found at most grocery stores, many folks turn to a patch to procure t…

You were hoping for a survey of where halloween pumpkin buyers buy their pumpkins?

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#53

Post by ImprovedSilence » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #30

The farm we go to rotates which field is used as their season pumpkin patch on a year by year basis. We wondered if there was some crop rotation benefit to doing that, like maybe pumpkins fix nitrogen so they’re a good intermittent crop between other nitrogen depleting species.

Pumpkin is a type of squash. Squash, bean, and corn is the “three sisters” so it makes sense those other ones could be rotated in.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#54

Post by jbay808 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #40

odyssey7 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just roll the wheelbarrow right over an in-floor scale! Subtract the wheelbarrow's own weight, which can be printed on the wheelbarrow itself. Or for something more high tech, put a QR code on the wheelbarrow and you can periodically update its empty weight in the database when it's empty and scan it at checkout.

This is basically how it works at my local landscaping store where they sell gravel by weight.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#55

Post by beauzero » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

jjmellon wrote: post #7

The article's profit calculations assume that every pumpkin grown can be sold. If you take a drive in the countryside today (last day of sale before Hallowe'en), you'll see this is not the case. Huge piles of pumpkins still at the farm stores, and fields full of unharvested pumpkins. I believe the likely explanation for pumpkin patch economics is that pumpkins serve as a loss leader to attract customers to a farm sto…

That's why you have pigs. In the South (USA) pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and apple farms are only profitable with weekend day treks sold to urban/subdivision bound parents looking to get their kids outside. Pumpkins sold in Aldi's cost about $5 and we have paid as much as $60 for a similar pumpkin picked out by one of our kids. It gets us all out of the house and helps local farms.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#56

Post by ranieuwe » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

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…

The way they solve this at a huge pumpkin patch out in Snohomish, WA (not Craven) is by having a member of staff walk down the line and tally up before people hit the register. They write the sizes and sum on a piece of paper, you give it to a cashier. Done. Lines went QUICK.

Low tech, works well.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#57

Post by bluGill » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

madiator wrote: post #33

mc32 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People have more than enough food. Where there is a famine you find a government behind it.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#58

Post by dougSF70 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

To be honest, it's a once a year event hence their popularity. A line (queue) comes with the experience. No need for tech / AI assisted solutions? Eyeball the size is the fastest method and people who go to pumpkin patches are happy to pay a premium.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#59

Post by comeonseriously » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

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…

The patch we went to had a loop with a string attached. Loop went over stem and they wound the string around the pumpkin. String had markings so they could tell how much to charge. Took all of 2 seconds per pumpkin.

I don't really want a teched out pumpkin patch.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#60

Post by jdkee » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

The linked article cites ~770 tons of pumpkins. But the source the article cites 13,751 thousands of cwt. A cwt is 100 pounds, so the total production is ~1.37 billion pounds or 687,500 tons. How can we trust the rest of the calculations in this article if the data is so far off?

See https://www.statista.com/statistics/192975/us-pumpkin-produc...