For twenty years, pumpkin spice-flavored items have signaled the unofficial start to autumn and it has ballooned into a $802.5 million industry according to NielsenIQ data for the 52-week period ending in July 2023.

But this is not because of an increase in unit sales of pumpkin spice goods, as one would think. During the same period, the number of products sold went down by 1.5 percent, the second straight year it has done so. What then is driving up dollar sales?

Pumpkin Spice Latte originally came from Starbucks in 2003 when Peter Dukes, the leader of the Starbucks espresso beverage team at the time, created the company’s first fall beverage.

According to Jin-A Choi, associate professor at Montclair State University, Pumpkin Spice Latte was first introduced as a test in about 100 stores across Washington D.C.

Choi added that PSL was not as popular among consumers at first. But after 20 years, the trend continues to expand from lattes to scented candles, and now pumpkin spice-flavored dog treats.

“I don’t think we’ve seen this craze until like eight years ago, and I think as more big-name brands have jumped on it [the trend], it has grown,” Choi said.

While the trend continues to expand within markets, this is not reflected in the number of units being sold thus creating a discrepancy between the dollar sales and unit sales for 2023. There are several theories that explain the discrepancy.

Consumers Are Paying More for Pumpkin Spice Products

Just as the number of products continues to rise, so has the price of pumpkin spice products. Which brings us to the first theory for the increase in dollar sales: pumpkin spice products are more expensive each year.

Starbucks raised the price of its Pumpkin Spice Lattes by 12 percent in 2022 and added another 50 cents to the standard 16-ounce fall latte this year per a report by The Krazy Coupon Lady.

According to Jadrian Wooten, a collegiate associate professor of economics at Virginia Tech, general labor costs associated with the food service industry have increased throughout the years.

“Labor costs have increased over the past couple years especially at places like Starbucks Starbucks Wooten said.

“Unionization is part of it but then also just general labor costs associated with the food service industry has increased a lot especially since the pandemic so that’s just gonna translate to higher sale numbers and mostly because that cost is pushed on to consumers themselves,” he added.

Apart from unionization, Wooten adds that the increase in labor costs has roots in some of the challenges COVID-19 posed for businesses, namely the supply-chain issues.

“At first, you think about something like Starbucks doesn't seem like it fits with that, but it's even things like shipping coffee from South America is harder and more expensive because of all the COVID-related stuff that was going on, sort of ports being shut down,” Wooten said.

More than an opportunity for retailers to make a profit, the price increase also serves as a buffer against higher labor costs and discourse around tipping, according to Wooten.

Another factor that Wooten thinks is at play when it comes to higher prices is inflation.

“You're looking at 4 or 5, 6% inflation [from the last couple of years] and so it's a much more obvious increase in prices than what it was before. So it's not necessarily super surprising to see sort of flat unit sales despite increasing sort of overall sales numbers,” Wooten said.

The 3.7% US inflation rate has affected everything from the price of eggs in the grocery store to the cost of a cup of coffee. A 16-ounce pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks now costs 4% more than it did in 2021, according to a CNN report.

Aside from Starbucks, retailers have also come to take advantage of the seasonal trend. Grocery stores have marked up the cost of pumpkin spice products by an average of 14.1% according to a report by Magnify Money in 2022. The report also showed that the largest pumpkin spice-related markup that year is 161.1% for Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spiced Teeny Tiny Pretzels which cost 50 cents an ounce.

But this has not deterred consumers from buying pumpkin spice products. A study by Montclair State University shows that in 21,000 social media posts from August 27 to September 25, 2023, 45% of social media users are feeling positive about pumpkin spice products, with only 5% feeling negative. The remaining 50% of the posts were deemed neutral.

Dr. Yi Luo, an associate professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University said price is not an issue for pumpkin spice lovers.

“In our discussion, the price hasn’t come up in either the major topics or trending topics so if you’re a pumpkin spice lover, you don’t care about the prices. You still get it,” Luo said.

Artificial pumpkin spice is not counted in the data on unit sales

Luo thinks it’s possible that retailers and manufacturers wanted to reduce the cost so they started incorporating artificial pumpkin spice in items but these items were not added in the data on unit sales.

“Maybe the profit from the sales of pumpkin spice counted the revenue/profits from artificial pumpkin; whereas the current data for pumpkin spice only considered the natural pumpkin spice without factoring in the artificial pumpkin spice”, Luo said. “So the increased profits might have included profits from both artificial and natural pumpkin spice.”

Unit sales and consumer interest

For the second straight year, unit sales of pumpkin spice products have seen a decline, according to NielsenIQ. The 1.5% decrease in unit sales for the period ending in July 2023, however, does not translate to a decline in consumer interest, according to Wooten.

“I would mostly say that it is not necessarily waning interest but rather they [consumers] have more options,” Wooten said.

Starbucks expanded its seasonal brew this year with the addition of Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte and apple-flavored Espressos and croissants. Meanwhile, Dunkin reintroduced the Pumpkin Spice Signature Latte to its patrons along with its Nutty Pumpkin Coffee, Pumpkin Swirl, and Pumpkin bakery line-up.

“Customers have more options and so in some sense before they would have gotten a Pumpkin Spice Latte once a week, now they get it every other week because they're filling in something in between,” Wooten said.

Starbucks revenues rose by 12% to $6.9 billion from July to September 2023. The coffee giant reported that fourth-quarter net revenues are up by 11% to a record $9.4 billion in a press release

Aside from coffee, pumpkin spice sales are said to have been doing well in grocery store chains. Cameron, a manager at Trader Joe’s on 72nd Street, said that this year sales have been higher than last year and that all seasonal products usually sell out within the first couple of weeks of fall. She added that sometimes the demand is so high that products will sell out before Halloween.

“Some of the most popular products include mostly cookie and candy products like Scotty Cookies and JoJo,” she said.

Team Trainer at Whole Foods on 63 Madison Avenue, Fernando Rodriguez, said that the most popular pumpkin spice products at Whole Foods stores include coffee creamers and cake mixes.

“Pumpkin spice is our major seller, and coffee creamer is one of the most popular because everyone is trying to get the pumpkin spice latte,” Rodriguez said.

Target stores are no different in terms of selling out pumpkin spice products.

Isabel Mendoza, manager at Target on the Upper West Side on 98th St. and Columbus, said, “they’re doing really, really well… We’d get the shipment in the morning and sell out about an hour and a half or two hours after that,” Mendoza said.

Some consumers express feeling ‘pumpkin spice fatigue’

But this is not to say that some consumers do not feel the so-called pumpkin spice fatigue.

According to Dr. Luo, just like with any other product, some people are going to grow out of pumpkin spice products because of the intensive marketing and commercialized message about pumpkin spice.

“15% of these sort of neutral and negative sentiments in our study, they [consumers] talk about frustration or fatigue about pumpkin spice like ‘oh, my God, pumpkin spice again,’” Luo said.

Every year companies roll out pumpkin spice products earlier and earlier to increase their revenue and draw out the pumpkin spice season as long as they can, according to Dr. Choi. She said that having longer pumpkin spice seasons can cause consumer fatigue.

“If companies are releasing pumpkin spice in August when it’s still hot, people are going to feel fatigue even before fall,” Choi said.

However, according to Wooten, this year pumpkin spice was not released as early compared the previous years.

“It usually was launched earlier and earlier, but I think this year they moved it a little bit later. I think like last year, they probably realized that it was too early, you know?” Wooten said.

Wooten said the foreseeable future of pumpkin spice is not consumer fatigue, but rather more businesses jumping on the trend such as McDonalds and Chick-fil-A.

“I think you’re going to start seeing them offer more than one menu item across their space as well,” Wooten said. “So not just in like a pumpkin spice portion but also like in their winter offerings [and] in their spring offerings.”

Choi also offers a promising outlook for pumpkin spice products and argues that one cannot escape pumpkin spice because businesses will continue to capitalize off of the trend as it is a strong moving force that drives consumerism.

“It’s so ingrained in American culture that fall does not arrive without the arrival of pumpkin spice,” Choi said. “Whether you want to be a part of it or not, it’s here.”

This story was co-written with Katrina Ventura at the Columbia School of Journalism.