This year’s unexpected wet summer in Britain has led to a peculiar consequence: the growth of scarily large pumpkins, right in time for Halloween.
DS Smith, a leading provider of sustainable, fibre-based packaging across Europe and North America, has reported an unprecedented surge in demand for its specialized eight-sided cardboard containers, known as Octabins, used for transporting pumpkins. With the heavy rains in July and August creating an ideal environment for these water-guzzling squashes to thrive, DS Smith expects to box up over 11 million pumpkins into 126,000 Octabins in the UK this year.
The larger pumpkins brought about by the rainfall have presented new challenges for the entire supply chain. Shipping the UK’s pumpkin harvest is a short and intense period, usually starting in late August. However, due to this year’s wet summer, the harvest was delayed. This tight window meant that growers have been in a rush to ensure the safe transportation of the harvest from farms to supermarkets.
Given their large size and weight, pumpkins require specialized packaging solutions for bulk shipping. The Octabin is an octagonal cardboard container developed by DS Smith, capable of holding up to 1.25 tonnes and safely stacking up to 85 pumpkins on top of each other. Made of recyclable cardboard, the Octabin’s unique shape prevents bulging, making it easier to fit inside trucks and shipping containers.
Speaking about the challenges faced, Ross McGowan, a pumpkin grower at Hatter’s farm in Essex, emphasized the need for robust and sustainable packaging, stating, “When they’re that big, what they’re stored or transported in can become an issue… As a pumpkin farmer, you need something incredibly robust, but at Hatter’s Farm we also want something sustainable as that’s really important to us, and to the families that come and visit us.”
Joe Coote, Pumpkin Packaging Account Manager at DS Smith, highlighted the spike in demand for their Octabins, driven by the size of this year’s pumpkins. He mentioned, “Our design uses an octagon shape to give it super strength… We’re in a race against the clock to get our Octabins bins to growers and retailers… We have loved helping to get the UK’s pumpkins to where they need to be.”
