i hope to god this is left over stuff. please. please.

I want to see Easter mix in now to create the ultimate abomination in one photo.

I will kill myself if it's not sale items. I'll do it! I will jump out of my window THIS MINUTE!

If you look at the table and chair and the shelves holding the coffee, you'll see that this is the Starbucks inside of Kroger, not Kroger itself. Starbucks usually has overstock of its promotional coffee for quite some time after its target promotion date, so these probably are indeed left over from the holiday season.

Today marks the end of the 51 Days of Christmas, you know the song - on the 51st day of Christmas my true love gave to me 51 bags of old coffee.

I'm sure it will be down tomorrow.

@Patrick Henry: It's not sale items....
I won't miss you.

it's leftover

starbucks has been selling that coffee discounted since december 24th.

uuh, not that I've ever been to starbucks... yeah... that.

That's a small Starbucks cafe in the store and some Starbucks still have their Christmas blend (my local one does). This is hardly a Kroger specific issue and not that big of a deal considering there is nothing holidayish about the coffee taste itself.

I worked at a Kroger store while in high school. You wouldn't believe the shipments of stuff we got. We would get Halloween stuff just after Valentine's Day. Most of the July 4th stuff came in right after Thanksgiving. Most of the time, it just sat in an area in the backroom where it was never tampered with. But still, the idea of getting stuff so early is just weird.

Kroger would be the laughing stock of retail if this wasn't leftover merchandise. They can't possibly believe this would sell as "early". However, I don't see a clearance sign nor do I think many major chains HAVE large displays of leftover Christmas merchandise on 2/14.

Heck, our Target had leftover Christmas items at 90% off a couple weeks ago to get rid of the last scraps.

@B: It's sale items! It's sale items! Don't pin your splattery death on Starbucks' conscience, man, they've got enough bad mojo right now.

@GinaLouise: Oh, ok. I'll let it go.

There's leftover "winter" coffee and other things for sale at my local supermarket, not attached to the Starbucks.

When are you liberal hate-mongers going to give up this War On Christmas??

Don't you understand that unless Christmas is crammed down every single person's throat 24/7/365, the other religions have won???

They probably just discounted it less than a dollar, as I've never seen a Starbucks sale. At Target, you can get that stuff cheaper off the shelves than at the in-store Starbucks. Besides, after December 25th, no one's going to want to drink their gingerbread coffee.

I'm glad there aren't Kroger's around Chicago. Or, if there are, I'm glad I'm good at ignoring them. Either way, it's all good.

@humphrmi: Don't like Kroger?

Oh and to everyone (including myself most of the time). Please stop saying Kroger's. The name is Kroger. And anyways, I kind of hope that it is just early. That Mountain Dew rotting the teeth of kids with stupid parents post (the one with the Appalachians) put me in an antagonizing mood, so therefore, on with the record making early displays! (Although I'm not sure how that is an incredibly bad thing, its just sad.)

I'm assuming it's leftovers, which makes me wonder how long it's been around. 4 months? 6? more?

@Jeremy Haggard:
I was the one who sent in the photo, and I'd be glad to believe it was overstock from last December, if not for the fact that this coffee was not there last week.

I shop this Kroger weekly, and I have to go past the Starbucks stand each visit. I'm reasonably sure they'd sold off all their Christmas items by mid-January.

Either they had an unopened case behind the counter that they just now found, or perhaps another location transferred some stock to them.

@FLConsumer: I wouldn't be surprised, considering properly bagged, unground coffee is good for a year.

I don't get all the hatin' on Christmas. I love Christmas! And hey, maybe it was a good blend and that particular location had some regulars who liked it so they found another box and started selling it.. either way it's not like it's going to be spoiled anytime soon (unless it was from Christmas '07) so bring on the holiday cheer!

@Cliff_Donner: HEY! When are you going to start sharing the holidays with Agnostica?!?

And here I was appalled that the Nazareth, PA, CVS not only didn't have the V-day chocolates half-price on V-day (c'mon, cut us late shoppers some slack), but they ALREADY had out all the Easter candy. But Christmas stuff? Get real.

Those are leftovers. Christmas blend at Starbucks comes out once a year a little before Christmas. It's a promotional coffee and there's a lot of hype around it amongst loyal Starbucks customers. (There was even a sign sent to every Starbucks to count down the days until the blend was released in stores this year.)

My store sold out before Christmas. We had a lot of people coming in and asking if we have any left. I guess it just doesn't have a loyal following in Paul's area or the obsessive customers don't go to non-corporate Starbucks.

At least the signage is for the current promo coffee: Casi Cielo.

All these comments... We know it's a crappy Starbucks inside a Kroger.... I think we all get it now... Kroger is a decent store IMO, I shop there semi-regularly (there or Meijer).

Starbucks, they are (not)enjoying a slow painful death. And I won't miss them. Now if only McDonalds will stop selling $2.50 coffee too ,and marketing it as inexpensive...

@PLATTWORX:

Back in Jan I seen Christmas stuff at 90% off. I was looking at the lights when one of the people standing there (think Ca train) came up and said if you buy one you get one free, at the 90% off. I'm like HUH? I'm not one to buy for next year, never have been. But the lights that you can run 8 and the good ones that sell for $15 not only at 90% but a free one to boot. $14 later I have over 25,000 lights again.

Didn't you hear? They declared an Emergency Christmas. It's the only thing that can save the economy. Kroger is just doing its part.

[www.thedailyshow.com]

@rensmooth at least its only roughly half the price of starbucks coffee.

There's no substitute to brewing your own coffee.

@J172: Yeah, and it's BARNES and NOBLE, not Barnes and Noble's.

And Williams-Sonoma, not Williams AND Sonoma.

That grates on my last nerve.

Why not just set aside a Christmas room (like the garden center) and let it be All Christmas All The Time! Playing Christmas, selling plastic baby Jesus' and other crap. Leave us alone in the rest of the store.

@Patrick Henry: It's out there fresh, better start shopping/jumping.

A supermarket near me still has a cornucopia Thanksgiving cake in the refrigerated section. No lie.

@Patrick Henry: need i remind you that you are on the first floor?

Kroger workers jammed the aisles on Valentines Day with pallets of Easter candy as they loaded the shelves full. They were there in the middle of the day tying up traffic flow as people tried to shop. Geez...

@SpiderPaintingDollarz: The name is Kroger. Kroger is an entity, and as such a noun. Kroger's is the grammatically correct representation of the possessive of the noun Kroger, indicating stores included in the Kroger entity. Corporate identity doesn't trump rules of grammar.

One of our local Walmart Supercenters was having some sort of last-ditch sidewalk clearance sale this weekend. Filling the entire space outside between the two entrances, with about 50% stuff clearly left over from Christmas; 30% toys that were at least left over from Christmas, more than likely well before; and 20% last summer's clearance crap that never moved, easily identified by the lack of color on the rotting, sun-faded packaging.

@humphrmi: It still looks and sounds weird to say "Kroger's" instead of "Kroger's stores".

@jwm1314: Yes, that is definitely last year's Starbucks Christmas Blend. They change the bags every Christmas, and IIRC the expiration date on a new pack isn't ten months out.

@skrolnik: It seems likely that someone else--another store or a corporate warehouse with some overstock--sent it to them to get rid of it. At any rate, those are definitely the 2008 bags.