We heard this first from our President, Shannon Hoffmann, next from Lynette Frisbee, GreenAcres Central Grocery Buyer, when the marketing team returned recently from Expo West. And now we’ve officially read it in the press: MAPLE IS THE NEW PUMPKIN!
So, it simply must be true.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that coffee companies such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts were rolling out pumpkin spice lattes and spicy iced pumpkin coffee and debuting these mouth-watering drinks around Halloween. It wasn’t the Fall season until the great pumpkin in all manner of drinks and desserts showed his Jack-o-Lantern face.
Today, there’s a new flavor on the horizon, and in fact it’s already here. Maple-flavored drinks, cookies, pancakes, cheesecakes and even bacon are on the rise and showing up on menus all over the country. Pumpkin mentions in the press, sited a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, are down 20% over last year, while maple mentions are up 86%.
An article in USA Today has gone so far as to declare that “pumpkin spice has jumped the shark,” a term in street jargon which means pumpkin spice may have finally terminated its run.
While you wouldn’t know it in the grocery business, since grocery stores from the traditional to health-food stores still carry plenty of products containing pumpkin. GreenAcres has pumpkin savory and sweet treats from house-made soup and pumpkin pie to pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin whoopie pies, pumpkin salted caramel cake which it sells in its delis, and grocery products from hummus to sandwich cookies, even dog food where the secondary ingredient is—you guessed it—pumpkin.
Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts may have Maple Pecan Lattes and Maple Pecan Iced Coffee respectively, but GreenAcres has the following:
MAPLE COTTON CANDY
ORGANIC MAPLE BUTTER
MAPLE ALMOND PERFECT BAR
MAPLE GINGER CASHEWS
MAPLE CINNAMON WAFFLES
MAPLE BACON PORK CRACKLINGS
MAPLE CHICKEN SAUSAGE
Of course, GA carries pure Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar. We’re coming into the baking season after all, and these products are in demand now. https://7splay.com
At our Bradley Fair store, we recently launched Gluten-Free/Paleo Sunday Brunch where we served, along with scrambled eggs, a vegetable medley, roasted new potatoes, a veggie/egg bake and brown sugar and pepper crispy bacon.
Star of the show though was a delicious gluten-free blueberry pancake and hot maple syrup. For some reason pure maple syrup just seems healthier than traditional syrup. 🙂
Look for more things maple to show up on our shelves in the future. Maple definitely is beginning to take center stage!