The LTO

Jeremiah's Italian Ice is reactivating its Pumpkin Pie Collection for the fall daypart, making the seasonal lineup available at participating locations through the end of November. The two-SKU LTO — the Pumpkin Pie Flavorite and the Pumpkin Pie Jelati® Cake — layers Pumpkin Italian Ice with Vanilla Soft Ice Cream and Spiced Cookie Butter Crumbles, targeting the same nostalgia-driven seasonal demand that has fueled autumn limited-time offerings across the broader frozen dessert and QSR segments.

The Flavorite is a single-serve build; the Jelati® Cake is a sliceable, shareable format positioned for group occasions and at-home freezer pull-through — a format distinction that broadens the collection's revenue occasion beyond in-store impulse.

Operator Rationale

For Jeremiah's franchisees, the return LTO carries a familiar operational logic: a proven flavor platform reintroduced without adding new equipment, training burden, or supply-chain complexity. CEO Michael Keller framed the seasonal cadence explicitly around franchisee economics. "Seasonal favorites like this give our franchisees another way to keep guests engaged and coming back throughout the year," Keller said.

Erin Buono, Director of Research & Development at Jeremiah's Italian Ice, noted the development brief centered on flavor fidelity to pumpkin pie rather than novelty. "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," Buono said. That approach — translating an existing flavor archetype into a brand-native format — keeps ingredient sourcing predictable and limits the operational risk that more experimental LTOs can introduce at the unit level.

Growth Backdrop

The seasonal push arrives as Jeremiah's sits at 175-plus locations open or in development across 11 states, concentrated in the Sun Belt. The chain began franchising in 2019 and has since earned placement on Technomic's Top 500 U.S. Chain Restaurants list and ranked No. 211 on Entrepreneur's 2026 Franchise 500. That growth trajectory puts Jeremiah's in the fast-casual frozen dessert tier alongside larger competitors, where LTO velocity and daypart diversification have become standard tools for maintaining comp-sales momentum between peak summer periods.

For the frozen dessert segment broadly, fall represents a traffic inflection point: same-store sales typically soften as temperatures drop, making a high-visibility seasonal LTO one of the cleaner levers operators can pull to defend visit frequency. Jeremiah's recurring Pumpkin Pie Collection addresses that window directly, using an established menu build that franchisees already know how to execute. The brand's franchise development pipeline across the Southeast and Southwest suggests continued unit growth will amplify the reach of future seasonal programs.

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.