The end of summer brings several changes, from turning leaves to cooler weather — and all things pumpkin spice. Deemed the “pumpkin spice tax” by MagnifyMoney, research shows that those who love pumpkin spice are paying heavily for it.
Without apparent rhyme or reason, the addition of pumpkin spice flavoring often changed prices, but not consistently through increases. Though many products saw no change in price compared to non-seasonal flavor options, less than half of the festive products observed came at a markup ranging from subtle to borderline exorbitant.
MagnifyMoney compared 80 pumpkin and non-pumpkin products and found that Americans pay an average of 8.8% more for items flavored with pumpkin spice, an increase of 10% compared to 2017. MagnifyMoney compared products from six different retailers:
- Amazon Fresh
- FreshDirect
- Target
- Trader Joe’s
- Walmart
- Whole Foods
The products ranged from the expected — pumpkin spice coffee creamer — to the seemingly redundant — sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins. While some pumpkin products turned out to be less expensive than their standard counterparts, the markups tended to run at greater margins than the discounts.
Of the six retailers examined, Trader Joe’s had the highest average pumpkin spice tax at 17.8%, while Target had the lowest pumpkin spice tax at -3.1%.
The highest pumpkin-spice-related markup came from Whole Foods, where the 365 Everyday pumpkin spice cheesecake sandwich cremes cost 41 cents an ounce, compared with its chocolate sandwich cremes, which cost 15 cents an ounce, a markup of 175.1%.
If you get your pumpkin spice fix from fall-flavored beverages Tim Hortons, has the highest pumpkin spice tax with a 20.1% premium on pumpkin spice drinks. Starbucks, who is arguably the mother of all things pumpkin-spice, isn’t doing much better with the average Starbucks pumpkin-spice flavored drink costing 15.9% more than its non-pumpkin counterpart. If you need a pumpkin spice beverage, it turns out that Dunkin is the ideal choice, as you can enjoy pumpkin-flavored beverages at the same cost as their regular products — just as they did in 2017.
Despite added costs, it looks like in 2020, the pumpkin spice craze has actually waned a little. According to Google Trends data, searches for “pumpkin spice” and “pumpkin spice latte” in both this autumn and last year’s haven’t reached August 2018 levels, which is when searches for pumpkin spice peaked. It’s not unreasonable to believe the ongoing pandemic has contributed to the lack of interest this season.
To view the full report on this year’s pumpkin spice task visit https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/news/pumpkin-spice-tax-study/.
