Brandon Dawson, a manufacturing engineer from Santa Rosa, California, won the 52nd World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off at the 2025 Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival. His pumpkin weighed an impressive 2,346 pounds (1,034 kg), making it the heaviest grown in the U.S. this year. Dawson, who works for electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive, has been growing giant pumpkins for five years and noted he “only lost to last year’s winner by a mere 6lbs (3kg).”
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The United States harvests over 1.2 billion pounds of pumpkins annually in its top six producing states (Illinois, California, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington), with a total U.S. output estimated at around 2.2 billion pounds, equivalent to nearly 52,000 truckloads. Illinois is the leading producer by a significant margin, harvesting more than double the pumpkin acreage of any other state and yielding approximately 690 million pounds in 2023—surpassing all other top states combined.
Reefer Market Conditions Index
Last week, reefer load post volumes saw a 9% increase, and along with a 6% decrease in equipment posts and tightening in reefer capacity last week, the reefer load-to-truck ratio increased to 12.9. Ongoing enforcement activities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Florida scale houses are impacting capacity for brokers and increasing load post volumes, up 33% in the last month and 13% in the last week.
In Lakeland, Florida, the largest refrigerated freight market in the state, load posts surged by 28% last week. This represents a 35% increase since Florida converted all truck weigh and agricultural inspection stations into checkpoints for ICE to conduct immigration status and English Language Proficiency (ELP) assessments on commercial drivers. Despite being months away from the produce season, reefer rates in Lakeland have already risen by $0.10 per mile during the same period, which is $0.03 (or 3%) higher than at this time last year.
In the McAllen market within the Rio Grande Valley, ICE activity has been extremely active. Reefer load posts surged by 37% last week and 42% over the past month, with most loads destined for Brooklyn, Elizabeth, Miami, and Los Angeles. Outbound McAllen reefer spot rates increased by $0.07 per mile last week, reaching $2.03. This is $0.14, or 7%, higher than last year. For the 1,600-mile haul to Los Angeles, carriers received an average of $2,910 per load, which is nearly $800 more per load than this time last year.
Reefer national spot rates
Last week, the national 7-day rolling average for reefer carriers climbed to $2.10 per mile, marking an increase of just under $0.02 per mile. This rate continues to surpass previous years, exceeding last year’s average by $0.12 (6%) and 2023’s by $0.24. Notably, last week’s rate even edged out the 2018 bull market by $0.05 per mile, albeit on the tail end.
