It’s one of the busiest times of the year for Barfoots of Botley who, together with supply chain partner IPP, are responsible for delivering four different types of pumpkins into the UK’s supermarkets.
At its busiest time in 2022, the Bognor Regis-based company delivered the equivalent of 40 lorry loads of pumpkins in one day.
Paul Chilton, the company’s head of logistics and planning, said the UK’s growing love of all things Halloween has led to year-on-year growth for pumpkin deliveries throughout its eight-year relationship with IPP.
Coventry-based IPP works with market gardeners and growers across the country to deliver pumpkins into the nation’s supermarkets, as well as delivering tens of millions of confectionery buckets for doorstep trick-or-treaters. As well as pumpkins, the company specialises in exotic vegetables such as sweetcorn, asparagus, sweet potato and butternut squashes.
Paul said: “Along with the summer sweetcorn season, this is one of our busiest times of the year. We’re moving more than a million pumpkins, which are used for carving, cooking and decoration.
“The biggest of the lot is the carving pumpkin, which accounts for around 750,000 pumpkins we grow and move.
“The vast majority of these are distributed over just four weeks. It’s a huge technical challenge getting everything lined up for effectively one day.”
