Except for Half Moon Bay, no one does pumpkin season like Trader Joe’s. The 2025 autumnal lineup of products includes a sizable number of returning bestsellers and a couple of new options (or new to us).
We bought a few grocery bags’ worth of snacks and treats (the new Halloween mini-totes weren’t available yet) land put them to the test in the newsroom.
One journalist looked at the huge array and muttered, “They’re jumping the shark.” Nope, we’re not declaring that until Trader Joe’s comes out with pumpkin-flavored Mandarin Orange Chicken.
Here are the results of our informal, highly unscientific taste test:
The clear favorites
Pumpkin Brioche Twist ($4.99): This year Trader Joe’s is presenting the brioche as a sliced loaf instead of a pull-apart bread — and perhaps tweaked the recipe too. The result? For the first time, this sweet bread rose to the top in our tasting. “The brioche is nice because the pumpkin is pretty subtle, just a little spiced swirl within the soft slice,” one taster commented. We agreed it would be nice toasted with butter and yummy as French toast. Or gild the lily and spoon some Pumpkin Butter (see below) on top. Even a self-avowed pumpkin-hater had to admit: “The brioche bread is so soft and delicious that I can overlook the pumpkin flavor.” Winner!
Pumpkin Mini Sheet Cake ($5.99): Nothing but praise for this tasty sheet cake slathered with cream cheese frosting. “The creamy icing and melt-in-your-mouth cake makes this one of the top snacks this year,” one said. “Moist, well-spiced; cream cheese frosting is rich but not overpowering,” said another. This cake is small but rich; a little square goes a long way toward scratching that itch for dessert.
Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps ($3.99) and Pumpkin Cream Cheese ($2.79): Again this year, this duo scored well with our tasters. The twice-baked crackers, which are a seasonal variation on Trader Joe’s Raisin Rosemary Crisps and Fig & Olive Crisps, are a sophisticated snack and would be terrific for a Thanksgiving appetizer tray because they get a nice pop from the cranberry. One taster said of this year’s version: “I think they may have added more ginger, and I don’t know if it helped much.” The cream cheese may also be more highly spiced than last year, but it’s still tasty and versatile.
Fall Harvest Salsa ($3.49): Put this zippy salsa — a perennial TJ’s favorite — on the coffee table for the football fans, and they won’t realize they’re getting a serving of veggies while screaming for the Niners. Pumpkin and tomatoes are the primary ingredients, followed by goodies like tomatillos, butternut squash, bell peppers, jalapeños. It’s also very low in calories. Our tasters finished off a bowl of this in short order. “The balance of sweet and spicy is nice, and while I don’t know if I would grab it over a traditional salsa, I came back for seconds,” one taster said.
Pumpkin Biscotti ($4.99): Tasters gave these “flavorful but not oversweet” cookies a solid recommendation. “The biscotti had a nice crunch to it. No frills, but it worked for me,” one person said. Another thought nuts in the recipe would add some interest. All agreed these biscotti would pair well with coffee.
Pumpkin Butter ($2.99): Trader Joe’s calls this product “the spread that started it all” and led to the store’s fascination (or should we we say obsession?) with pumpkin. It’s a rich, old-timey topping, something your great-grandmother might have made on the stove back in the day. One taster found it “more jammy” than she expected. Besides bringing back memories, what makes pumpkin butter so appealing? As one taster said, “it’s well-spiced and not unbearably sweet.” Cloves play a prominent role in that spice mix.
Split decisions
Danish Kringle, Pumpkin ($9.99): For years now, TJ’s has been bringing in pastry rings in seasonal flavors from Wisconsin, the kringle capital of the country. When it came to this autumnal version, our tasters fell into two camps: “Way too pumpkiny” vs “Not pumpkiny enough.” And then there was the “too sweet” contingent. Those who enjoyed this large Danish ring praised the moistness.
Pumpkin Spiced Pumpkin Seeds ($3.99): The bowl filled with these savory snacks didn’t empty out, and that was telling. Maybe sweet-and-spicy would work better? “Tasty, but too ‘one note’ to hold their own as a snack. Would work well in a trail mix,” one person said. Another thought these seeds could work in a salad.
Pumpkin Spice Batons ($2.29): The most affordable of the snacks we tried comes in a handy-to-tote-around cylindrical can. Impressions of the taste were mixed. Some think these crunchy little batons have a nice pumpkin flavor; others found the flavor underwhelming and too vanilla-y.
Fall Leaf Corn Tortilla Chips ($3.99): These are traditional chips (no pumpkin flavoring) shaped like fall leaves. Fun for parties — with one caveat: “They go great with the Fall Harvest Salsa, but Trader Joe’s needs to improve the chips’ scoop-ability.”
Back to the test kitchen
The Trader Joe’s folks must not be reading our annual reviews because these products still need to be reformulated.
Pumpkin Flavored Joe-Joe’s ($2.99) and Pumpkin Spiced Joe-Joe’s Sandwich Cookies ($4.49): The former taste too chalky and the exteriors go soft pretty quickly after you open the box. The latter are overly sweet and spiced, what with a pumpkin yogurt coating on top of an all-pumpkin-flavor cookie. To most, the flavors in both are off-putting — but we received one late thumbs-up on the coated version.
Pumpkin Spice Tortilla Chips ($2.49): These chips are hard and brittle, with an unappealing taste. As one tester told us for a second year, maybe tortilla chips aren’t the right vehicle for pumpkin flavors.
Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew Concentrate ($9.99): The daily cold-brew drinkers that we are, we tried to like this one. The flavor is simply unappealing. “I mixed in some of TJ’s tasty Ready-to-Use Espresso to try to cut through the pumpkin flavor in the cold brew,” one taster said, “but even the caffeine rush didn’t make up for the sickly squash flavor on my taste buds.”
Send this one to the product graveyard
This Pumpkin Walks into a Bar … Cereal Bars ($2.49): Don’t be fooled by the clever name. These breakfast bars are just as we remember them. They smell — and taste — like a candle, the cinnamon-clove ones that will be sitting on the discount table on Nov. 1. Even the hardcore pumpkin spice lovers among us recommend you take a pass.
