‘Tis the season for loading up on all things pumpkin spice, whether you prefer lattes, pumpkin ale or pumpkin spice cookies. Fans of the flavor love the variety of options for pumpkin spice products, but they’d better be prepared to pay more for them. New research from LendingTree reveals just how much the “pumpkin spice tax” is costing us.
That’s what they call the phenomenon of higher prices on pumpkin-spiced items. According to LendingTree’s seasonal report, people should expect to pay 7.4% more, on average, than they do for pumpkin-free alternatives.
- The finance site has been studying the pumpkin spice markup since 2020 and while 7.4% is still a significant increase in cost, it’s down from a high of 14.1% in 2022.
- LendingTree analyzed the cost of 116 pumpkin or pumpkin spice grocery store and coffee-shop items this year.
- They found that retailers tend to charge more for anything with a pumpkin label, while some charge the same price, but the pumpkin-spice product is in a smaller package, which is known as “shrinkflation.”
Some examples of the pumpkin spice tax LendingTree found this year:
- A 16-ounce Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks is $7.45, while a regular Iced Caffe Latte costs $5.95.
- A family-size box of Kellogg’s Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes is priced at $5.95 at Target, while a regular size box of Frosted Flakes costs the same, but the box is bigger.
- A quart of Trader Joe’s Non-Dairy Pumpkin Oat Beverage is $2.99, while a quart of regular Non-Dairy Oat Beverage is $2.79.
- But not everything pumpkin spice costs more. LendingTree found that a quart of Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate at Target costs $11.49, the same price as the non-pumpkin variety. And at Trader Joe’s a box of Pumpkin Joe-Joe’s sandwich cookies was actually less expensive than a box of their peanut butter and chocolate Joe-Joe’s.
Source: USA Today