Key Points
- Pineapple farmers who have had a difficult couple of years are urging Australians to carve their crop for Halloween.
- They say consumers not only get a decorative jack-o'-lantern — they also get to eat the carved-out fruit.
- Some growers are marketing their pineapples as 'spooky pines' at supermarkets in the lead-up to the celebration.
Bright orange pumpkins with angry eyes and jagged teeth lit up from within are synonymous with Halloween.
This year, however, a group of farmers are calling for Australians to carve a summer fruit instead of a winter vegetable.
Pumpkins and pineapples
Queensland pineapple farmers say Australians should carve pineapples for Halloween as they create less waste and their tough outer skin makes them look as creepy, if not more, than pumpkins.
Gnarled skin and spiky tops give carved pineapples quite the spooky look, farmers marketing 'spooky pines' say. Source: Getty / Jennifer A Smith
"It's been a really tough year this year, following on from the ," he said.
"With all of that natural flowering that we had in February this year, there was a surplus of pineapples around, and then following that there was very little fruit around, so it's been a feast or famine sort of thing," he said.
Halloween traditions
The practice of carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns has taken off in .
Major supermarkets jumped on board more than a decade ago by starting to sell pumpkins grown specifically for carving in the lead-up to 31 October.
Stokes, who is a fourth-generation pineapple farmer, thought substituting pineapples for pumpkins at Halloween was an unusual idea when he first heard it, but he soon realised it made a lot of sense.
Pineapple farmer Ben Stokes says he's been getting increased orders for pineapples in the lead-up to Halloween. Source: Supplied
Stokes said it was a more effective use of resources, as the flesh of pineapples isn't
"Pumpkins, as far as I know — that variety they grow purely for carving — it is essentially just cosmetic. Whereas our fruit, we have no waste. You can still enjoy the inside of the fruit," Stokes said.
While the flesh of carving pumpkins is edible, there is usually less of it and it can be stringy and dry compared to pumpkins sold solely for consumption.
How to carve a pineapple jack-o'-lantern
Stokes said the process of carving a pineapple was relatively simple.
The hole for the mouth doubles as an entry point for the knife to make a horizontal cut along the bottom part of the inside of the fruit.
"Then if you sort of cut vertically inside the skin, around the point where you can just remove the whole inside, and then you're free to cut your eyes and nose and however else you want to decorate your pineapple."
For those who have them, pineapple corers can make the process a little easier.
Demand for Halloween pumpkins growing
The idea of marketing jack-o'-lantern pineapples was adopted by Pure Gold Pineapples, which represents a group of Queensland pineapple farmers, seven years ago.
Stokes said the majority of pineapples in Australian supermarkets were sold without the spiky leaves that sprout from the top.
'Spooky pines' aren't a unique variety of pineapple — it's just that the tops have been left on.
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Stokes said he had already noticed orders for fruit with the tops had been higher than usual in recent weeks.
"This year in particular it seemed that the orders went up week on week from the forecast when we started ... and they seem to be increasing their orders weekly," he said.
