Over this year's Halloween season, Britain is expected to generate record levels of food waste in their usage and subsequent disposal of pumpkins.
It is predicted that more than 8 million pumpkins are heading for the bin, as a result of not being consumed - this is the equivalent of more than 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin flesh. About 40% of consumers buy fresh pumpkins with the intention of hollowing out and carving them to celebrate Halloween, but 60% of those admit that they do not use the resulting flesh - this according to research by the stock cube brand Knorr, as well as from the environmental charity Hubbub.
Halloween has become a big money-spinner for various retailers, seeing an estimated 10 million pumpkins sold in the UK every year - 95% of these are hollowed out to create the ghoulish lanterns. In an attempt to reduce that impact, at the end of November, the first commercially brewed beer in the UK that is made from pumpkin flesh, that would otherwise be wasted, is to go on sale. Toast Ale, who first launched a beer made from surplus bread, will brew a Belgian-style pumpkin Dubbel, using squashes that are collected by volunteers from local farms.
Tessa Tricks, the head of food programmes at Hubbub, has said, "It's all too easy for people to forget that Halloween pumpkins are still food. When they are only used for carving this contributes to the £15 billion of food waste in UK homes every year."
