WASHINGTON — For some, the sure sign of fall isn’t the leaves changing colors or the cooling temperatures. It’s Starbucks bringing out its Pumpkin Spice Latte.
It’s not just Starbucks, there’s Pumpkin Spice Cheerios, pumpkin spice cookies, pumpkin spice doughnuts.
In fact, there is such a plethora of pumpkin spice-related products that some think the country has hit peak-pumpkin.
“Brands are putting pumpkin spice into everything from cereal to yogurt to coffee,” Samir Bhavani, area vice president at 1010data, an analytics technology company, according to MarketWatch. “We may be at peak spice and we’ll know whether pumpkin spice has jumped the shark as this season’s sales roll in.”
The company has found that while the number of pumpkin spice items available online has jumped 49 percent, sales have only grown 21 percent, which means there’s more supply than demand.
But is there a new flavor ready to reign supreme?
According to MarketWatch, “Maple is surging,” said Pat Cobe, senior editor and menu analyst at Technomic, a data and analytics provider for the food service industry. “Consumers are fickle and probably looking for something new already.”
Technomic Menu Monitor shows that maple is up about 85 percent in nonalcoholic beverages and up 14.6 percent in alcoholic beverages from 2016 to 2017.
Companies might want to find something that would differentiate its menu from the plenty of pumpkin spice products popping up everywhere. Maple could be the spice that does it.
“I’m sure that’s why Dunkin’ Donuts introduced maple coffee,” Cobe said.
Maple might be the spice of the future, but don’t count on pumpkin spice disappearing anytime soon either.
