The Seasonal Lineup
Jeremiah's Italian Ice, the Orlando-based frozen dessert chain with more than 175 locations open or in development, has returned its Pumpkin Pie Collection for fall 2026, available at participating stores through the end of November while supplies last. The two-item lineup — the Pumpkin Pie Flavorite and the Pumpkin Pie Jelati® Cake — layers Pumpkin Italian Ice with Vanilla Soft Ice Cream and Cookie Butter Crumbles, the brand's frozen riff on a classic fall dessert profile.
The Pumpkin Pie Flavorite is a single-serve layered cup format, while the Pumpkin Pie Jelati® Cake is a sliceable, shareable version designed for gatherings or take-home occasions — a format that broadens the brand's daypart and party-size appeal beyond the counter.
LTO as Franchise Tool
For a franchise system still in active growth mode — Jeremiah's began franchising in 2019 and now spans Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas, and several other Southern states — limited-time offerings serve a dual purpose. They give franchisees a promotional hook without requiring back-of-house complexity, and they reward returning guests with something seasonally familiar. CEO Michael Keller framed it plainly: "Seasonal favorites like this give our franchisees another way to keep guests engaged and coming back throughout the year."
Erin Buono, Director of Research & Development, said the development goal was capturing existing pumpkin-pie associations in Jeremiah's format rather than creating something novel. "The Pumpkin Italian Ice delivers those familiar seasonal flavors, while the Vanilla Soft Ice Cream and Cookie Butter Crumbles bring in the creaminess and texture that make the whole combination feel like dessert," she said.
Context for Operators
Seasonal LTO strategy is well-established in the frozen and dispensed beverage category, where operators from QSRs to c-store foodservice programs use pumpkin, apple, and holiday flavors to sustain traffic between summer and holiday peaks. For frozen-treat specialists like Jeremiah's, fall is historically a traffic challenge as temperatures cool, making a nostalgia-driven, urgency-limited SKU a defensible traffic driver.
Jeremiah's ranked No. 211 on Entrepreneur magazine's 2026 Franchise 500 list and landed on Technomic's Top 500 U.S. Chain Restaurants, signaling a unit-count trajectory that puts the brand on the radar of convenience and foodservice adjacency watchers. With 175-plus locations concentrated in warm-weather Southern markets, the chain's seasonal window is narrower than Northern-state competitors, making execution consistency across franchisees a key operational variable this fall.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
