It's time to take the fear factor out of eating pumpkins in the run up to Halloween, says the NFU.
It is teaming up with Cambridgeshire grower, David Brown, Budgens and cook, Monica Askay, to show that pumpkins promise far more than their main use as Halloween lanterns.
Shoppers visiting Budgens' Soham store on Friday (28 October) will be able to sample a range of frighteningly good sweet and savoury recipes, from dry roasted and spiced pumpkin seeds to pumpkin, apple and ginger soup, iced pumpkin cookies and candied pumpkin.
Cook, Monica Askay, said: "Most pumpkins are bought to be carved and the flesh is thrown away but there are so many different and delicious ways to cook them."
The recipes will use pumpkins grown in Cambridgeshire at Oakley Farm, Outwell. Farmer, David Brown, is one of the major pumpkin growers in the country, harvesting more than one million pumpkins a year.
All the pumpkins on sale in Budgens stores nationwide come from Oakley Farm and are harvested and graded by hand to ensure they are the right quality. They all carry the Red Tractor logo to show that they were grown on an assured UK farm.
And to back up the standards behind the logo, the pumpkins also carry a personal promise from David Brown that they have been hand-selected for Budgens. He is one of the farmers and growers taking part in the promise campaign, a national initiative devised by the NFU and sponsored by tractor manufacturer, Massey Ferguson, to promote the Red Tractor logo. Musgrave Budgens Londis was the first retailer to sign up to the initiative and is promoting the Promise Campaign throughout its Budgens' stores.
David Brown said: "We are proud of the care that goes into growing and harvesting our pumpkins so we were delighted to support the promise campaign. I'm also looking forward to talking to shoppers on Friday about how we grow our pumpkins - and spelling out how good they taste as well!"
Store manager, Ivan Bond, said: "Budgens in Soham is a local store serving the local community and I'm pleased to say that all our pumpkins are grown locally. And they are all half price over Hallowe'en!"
The NFU's Promising Pumpkins Promotion takes place at Budgens in Soham between 10am and 12pm. Reporters and photographers are welcome to attend.
