BoiseBruce's Profile

OK, I confess that I find so many people with so many opinions on this topic that I thought I'd set the record straight. For 10 years I lived in the Morton, Illinois area (Peoria, Illinois) and every fall did a few things. I dodged 25# pumpkins falling off of trucks and skidding along the road on occasion, went to the Morton Pumpkin Festival and watched the pumpkin processing of Libby's pumpkin plant every fall.

I can honestly say that while there was some pumpkin odors down wind of the plant on occasion, the "entire city" does not smell like pumpkin. All food processing plants which involve water and fruits or vegetables have a fragrance of the food that they process. I know first hand that sugar beets, onions and potatoes all have definitive odors of the product processed at varying times of the year from the processing plant. Better than a feed lot, I will tell you! LOL

The pumpkins used by Libby's are a Dickenson version of C. moschata pumpkin that is a unique pumpkin. The only place one can find the seeds is if you are a grower under contract to Libby's. All seeds are provided to the farmers by Libby's. My guess is that Libby's saves them from the processing of the pumpkins, but am not certain.

The pumpkins are a lighter color than the jack-o-lantern verion we see in stores and fruit stands. They look more like a butternut squash. Probably because they are in the same family. As I recall the complete name for their pumpkins is, Libby's Select Dickinson (C. moschata)

The Libby's pumpkin is almost all meat. The center of the pumkin is a very small cavity with few strings and not as many seeds as we'd see in a typical Halloween pumpkin. The meat is probably 3" (or more) thick and all but impossible to carve for a jack-o-lantern. I know as I tried once.

The pumpkin at the Libby's plant (no I had/have no business or financial connection with them) is 100% pumpkin. Nothing else. So please do not feel you are being cheated, given butternut sqash (same family but not the same plant).

The plant was at one time open for tours during the pumpkin festival as I recall. Having owned and operated my own USDA inspected food processing plant for 8 years and done work with Simplot (they provide McDonalds, Burger King and others with their french fries), I'm familiar with the processes involved but we did no canning. My plant ownership was about 8 years after I moved from Illinois.

Sugar beets (also grown in Idaho-not Iowa or Illinois-where I now live) are processed in a very similar manner to the pumpkins, except dried or made into a syrup instead of canning.

It is my recollection that the entire plant processing time for canning pumpkins is only 4-8 weeks. During that time they process 85-90% of all pumpkin (canned) in the US. All grown within 50 or so miles of Morton and on about 5,000 acres of land. It is why there was a spike in prices for canned pumpkin in 2009 (I believe that was the year) as there was a powdery mildew that almost wiped out the entire crop of Libby's pumpkins.

There you have the majority of what I know on this topic. Anything under a Libby's label or private labeled for them in pure pumpkin. Nothing else.