The craze about pumpkin spice has been happening for years, but that might not be for much longer. MarketWatch’s market trend analyst Tonya Garcia predicts in the article “Maple may end pumpkin spice” that the infamous pumpkin spice, has hit its plateau and is going to be overrun by a long standing fall flavor: maple. While pumpkin spice is still the market leader, it is getting some competition from maple, starting at the Natural Products Expo in Baltimore last week, when many startup companies are only offering maple products for their seasonal lineup.

According to FoodDIVE article “Will maple tap some of pumpkin spice’s popularity”, written by Erica Kincaid, the number of pumpkin spice products being produced continues to rise. The number of pumpkin and pumpkin spice products on the market is truly staggering, with General Mills introducing pumpkin spice Cheerios, Lindor offering pumpkin spice truffles, and the California Fruit Wine Company introduces a pumpkin spice wine. There has, however, also been a surge in the maple flavored products being offered. Maple water, which is made from the sap of maple trees, is currently in the spotlight, and analysts predict that it will triple its market share by 2020. Non alcoholic maple flavored beverage sales are up 86% since this time last year.  Hard beverages are also seeing exponential growth in sales of maple flavored products, which have grown by 14.6% since last fall.

In light of this trend, many companies are working to put maple flavored products on the market, the first of which started with a New England favorite, Dunkin Donuts. Dunkin has introduced a maple pecan flavor to its fall flavor lineup. RXBAR’s maple sea salt flavor made an entrance this year, as did Maple Hill’s maple flavored yogurt as well as many cheese varieties.

Personally, I did not like Dunkin’s maple pecan flavor when it was made ‘regular’. I found it to be a very fake flavor, as it didn’t taste like real maple, but more like a very sweet artificial syrup flavor. I think that it was probably oversweet and syrup-y due to the fact that a ‘regular’ at Dunk’s has added sugar on top of the maple swirl. I thoroughly enjoyed the maple flavor when I ordered a medium iced black dark roast coffee and only 2 pumps of maple.

I did enjoy the Chobani maple flavor yogurt, as it is very reminiscent of a real maple syrup flavor. While I enjoy pumpkin spice flavors while they are around, I think that maple is a flavor that can be enjoyed year round, rather than just in the fall, especially given we live in New England, where most maple syrup is produced.