Have you ever wondered where your delicious pumpkin seed snacks come from? You may have roasted a pan of seeds in your household oven, but it’s a little different producing seeds by the ton. In such large quantities, how do they get from the pumpkins in the field, to the package in your hand? Well, harvesting pumpkin seeds is quite the process, and here at Autumn Seed Company, it’s our bread and butter!
Unlike most pumpkin seeds you will find, our seeds are entirely USA grown. From our headquarters in Corvallis, Oregon, we harvest over 4 million lbs of non-GMO pumpkin seeds every year. We grow our own unique variety seeds, which we consider the sweetest and best-tasting seeds on the market. Having grown pumpkins all around the world, we can say with confidence that Oregon’s Willamette Valley provides the best conditions for producing high quality and great-tasting pumpkin seeds.
Every spring, we contract with farmers across the Willamette Valley and begin the planting process. Once the seeds are planted, we work alongside our farmers and watch as our fields grow greener, and plants begin to bloom. Throughout the summer and into the fall, our plants are grown with care and watered to guarantee that every plant is ready for harvest in the fall. When September comes around we shift into extra gears to ensure that all pumpkins are harvested in a timely manner.
Harvesting pumpkin seeds is our specialty. All of our machinery used in harvesting our pumpkin seeds is specially designed and produced from within Autumn Seed’s own fabrication shop. These machines are used to harvest and separate the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin meat, and from there the seeds are taken back to our facility to undergo a process of washing, drying, and cleaning. Our specialized process of extracting seeds leaves behind all unwanted pieces of the pumpkin plant and enables us to deliver bulk quantities of pure seed. From the beginning to the end of the harvesting process no chemicals are used to process our seed. Only water is used, as we are committed to preserving the natural flavor and nutrients contained within each seed.
At the end of this process, raw pumpkin seeds are shipped to our various customers in the United States and Canada who then proceed to roast and salt the seeds to be sold in stores. We don’t do any roasting in our facility, but sell them as raw seeds in bulk quantities. Customers may choose between our highly coveted snow white pumpkin seeds, and our incredibly delicious pepitas that grow without a shell.
We sell our seeds only in bulk quantities, and a minimum order is usually about 10,000 lbs. Our packages include 50 lb bags (2,000 lbs per pallet) or 1,200 lb super-sacks. Everything is FOB our facility.
Our customers will attest to the many useful purposes that they find for pumpkin seeds. Much of our seed is eventually sold as snack food, but other is made into pumpkin seed oil, powder, or butter and later sold to restaurants and stores. In addition to this, some organic pumpkin seeds are even used in pet food. Being high in protein and other nutrients, pumpkin seeds have health benefits for animals and humans alike!