Calgarians have been scrambling for several days to find last-minute Halloween pumpkins.
Randi Van Wiltenburg spent Monday trying to find a pumpkin to carve with her children but says all the stores she called were sold out.
“I’ve never noticed this before. It’s quite surprising, it’s bizarre. Apparently, last-minute moms lose out this time.”
She even posted a request on a Calgary Moms Facebook group and she’s not the only one looking.
The shortage has prompted some people to try selling pumpkins on Kijiji for anywhere between $15 and $50.
Some families have even had to substitute other large fruit like melons and squash for pumpkin carving.
Stores only bring in limited supplies of pumpkins and it’s common for them to run out a few days before Halloween. Still, this year, there appears to be a larger than normal demand.
According to the Calgary Corn Maze, which gets its pumpkins from an Alberta grower, cold weather in September damaged crops in the field and in storage and there were fewer local pumpkins than normal.
So when the Telus Spark science centre posted free pumpkins on social media Monday, it didn’t take long for word to get around and people were streaming in to pick them up.