南瓜味食品：终极春药？

    南瓜风味食品与万圣节糖果十分类似。两者都预示着秋天的来临，而且随着它们一年比一年早地出现，仿佛连传统的季节划分都要为之改变。

    不过与其他的饮食风尚不同——典型的例子如可颂甜甜圈和棒棒糖蛋糕——南瓜风味食品的热度十分持久。星巴克（Starbucks）推出南瓜拿铁（Pumpkin Spice Latte，被狂热的爱好者称为PSL）至今已有11年，该产品已经售出超过200万份，是该公司最为流行的季节性饮料。星巴克的竞争对手，咖啡供应商唐恩都乐（Dunkin’ Donuts）也在今年推出了超过6款南瓜风味咖啡。唐恩都乐表示，他们花了不少时间来研究如何提高产品的“南瓜特色”。

    大多数顾客都非常清楚，我们说的不只是咖啡，还包括任何已经有、或者很快就会有南瓜风味的产品：奥利奥（Oreos）、蜜兰诺（Milano）小甜饼、M&M巧克力豆、酸奶、棉花糖、口香糖、燕麦片、Eggo华夫饼。上周甚至还有传闻说南瓜味的避孕套即将上市，不过最后证明这是个恶作剧。这个假新闻之所以会吸引如此多的关注，也说明了南瓜题材已经变得多么诱人。

    也可以说，这则新闻是在讽刺这个曾经默默无闻，现在却无处不在的瓜类家族成员。确实，已经有人开始抱怨自己患上了南瓜风味疲劳症（权且称其为PSF）。但另一方面，饮食习惯的调查数据显示，他们仍然在喝南瓜拿铁。行业追踪机构英敏特（Mintel）发现，自2006年起，在美国人的菜单上，拥有南瓜成分的饮料数量增加了130%。而自2004年起，南瓜风味食物在菜单上的数量已经增加了10倍之多。

    到底是什么让南瓜风味如此势不可挡？《财富》（Fortune）决定探究这一现象背后的消费心理学。

    星巴克和唐恩都乐的高管都指出，这种风味能唤起季节感与怀旧之情。南瓜拿铁研发负责人，星巴克产品经理彼得•杜克斯表示：“这种饮料捕捉到了秋天的真味。”他的同事，星巴克美国区、美洲区总裁兼Teavana茶品牌负责人克利夫•巴罗斯认为，南瓜风味的成功，与悠长暑假的结束和返校，以及美国劳动节假期的结束有关。他表示：“这是一个重要的转折点。喝着南瓜味饮料度过这段转折期是一个好办法。”

    Pumpkin spice is a lot like Halloween candy. Both are harbingers of fall, and both seem to push the appropriate seasonal boundaries by popping up earlier and earlier every year.

    But unlike other food fads—two well-documented examples are cronuts and cake pops—pumpkin spice has endured. This is the 11th year that the Pumpkin Spice Latte (the PSL, in the parlance of aficionados) has graced the menu at Starbucks . With more than 200 million PSLs sold, it’s the company’s most popular seasonal beverage. Rival coffee purveyor Dunkin’ Donuts has more than a half dozen pumpkin-flavored items on the menu this year. The company says it spends time strategizing how it can ramp up the “pumpkin-osity” of its offerings.

    As most consumers are well aware, we are not speaking merely of coffee. Just about anything that can have a pumpkin variety now does, or soon will: Oreos, Milano cookies, M&Ms, yogurt, marshmallows, gum, oatmeal, Eggo waffles. There was even buzz last week, which turned out to be a hoax, about a pumpkin spice condom. The fact that this fake news gained so much traction is a sign of how sexy the subject has become.

    Or perhaps it was an ironic commentary on the ubiquity of a once-humble member of the squash and melon family. Indeed, some have begun to complain of pumpkin spice fatigue (let’s call it PSF) out of one side of their mouths—but data on eating habits suggest they’re still sipping PSLs out of the other. Since 2006, industry tracker Mintel has found that pumpkin as a beverage ingredient has grown 130% on U.S. menus. Since 2004 the use of pumpkin as a flavor in food on menus has increased ten-fold.

    So what’s driving the flavor to these new heights? Fortune decided to investigate the consumer psychology behind pumpkin spice.

    Both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts executives point to the seasonality and nostalgia evoked by the flavor. “It’s a beverage that captures the essence of fall,” says Peter Dukes, who led the PSL’s development as a Starbucks product manager. His colleague Cliff Burrows, group president of the U.S., Americas, and Teavana, thinks its success is linked to the combination of the return to school after the long summer holiday and the closure of the season with Labor Day. “There’s something about that whole turning point, which is so significant,” he says. “It’s a nice way to turn the corner on the year.”