I saw an odd thing in Starbucks. While waiting in line, I noticed a nice display promoting the Pike Place blend. The little paper bags had seals on them with a hand-written date. I was curious if perhaps they had fixed their freshness problem and were promoting the roast date. No such luck. Closer inspection revealed the verbiage ‘Freshly Scooped On: 5/14’. At least 5/14 happened to be that day, but it is odd to think that they are paying people to scoop stale beans into individual bags at the store to give an illusion of freshness.
Allow me to invoke the great Charlie Brown, ‘Good Grief’. This idea would not have done well in the INeedCoffee Roundtable of Starbucks Ideas.
Interesting side note: the phrase ‘freshly scooped on’ via google returns a link to a cat litter product as the highest link at the moment. That’s certain to change now 🙂