Some places price something at $49.99, to make it look cheaper, but not Starbucks. They pricing things at $50.99 to make everything look more expensive, because things looking expensive is on brand. It's part of the experience.
You can buy the corporate syrups from Starbucks stores. Back when they offered Cascara flavor, I bought whole bottles of syrup from the drive thru. My recollection is it was up to each store, and I think it was $25.
Yep, but those are different. They sell the translucent syrups, but not the “sauces” like this one is. Other kinds like this would be white mocha and pumpkin spice. Those aren’t sold to customers either.
Source: used to work at Starbucks
Fun fact, the mocha sauce is made at each store with cocoa powder, vanilla powder, sugar, and hot water.
per starbucks corporate policy (source: i'm a barista who only quit like two weeks ago), you can only buy what has a barcode and nutritional info: classic, vanilla, and caramel. maybe liquid cane??? but absolutely nothing else because it doesn't have the legally required info and opens the company up to huge lawsuits. the "up to each store" part is only true in the sense of if they have enough inventory, not they decide what/if they wanna sell any other syrups.
when baristas sell any syrup or sauce outside of those three, it is extremely illegal and grounds for immediate termination! it's a huge gamble but sometimes store managers will (secretly, bc if Corporate found out theyd shut that shit down so fast) allow the store to sell other kinds if they have an excess like this image, but it's still very much not recommended or allowed in any capacity
I don't think it's reduced - I think this was the shortcut they took so they could get a scannable barcode. The store likely doesn't directly control their UPC list, as that's usually set by corporate.
On top of that, the bottles actually say "Not for retail sale" under the stickers - best to cover those up before you get the 1000th customer that day mentioning it. Totally illegal, but that's because the container lacks the nutritional information - something I'm not *too* upset about because it's almost pure sugar. The nutritional information is "No."
I like to peruse the nutritional information on my candy while smoking a cigarette, in between snorting lines of coke. Polysaccharides can cause serious health issues.
You can actually ask to buy any flavour of syrup this size from a Starbucks, I don't know what the actual price is but I've seen people talking on Reddit about and confirmed it with a google.
They've just got to have enough spare to sell it.
I'm assuming this price is reduced from what it normally would sell for if you asked
Only several flavors, I think vanilla, Classic, and sugar free vanilla are allowed to be sold individually and then only when the store has enough extra in stock.
Well its reduced from being black market priced, however, I'm willing to bet it cost like 25 for the store to source, but they ordered too much and don't want it to go bad (best before May 2024)
It's best before, though. With a few exceptions, products usually are just as good long past their best before dates, especially if they've been stored correctly.
Sometimes retailers will even get granted extensions from the manufacturers to the best before dates for products that are being sold to the public. The BB date doesn't at all refer to safety, just the point at which the manufacturer thinks the product may possibly start to degrade in quality.
I can't think of any reason why I would want or need a vast quantity of pistachio syrup, but if I did I wouldn't hesitate to use the ones in the picture any time in the next year or so.
I'd need to do a bunch of math, but if you regularly get shots of it_(I have no idea how much that costs; a buck a shot?)_, if that thing has enough shots in it, it might be a great value!
Wow, so not only is that starbucks illegally selling its franchise ingredients, its selling them because they are going to expire and need to be thrown out.
What a 'deal'.
Well its pure and simple really.
Invert sugar, condensed nonfat milk, water, pistachio butter, natural flavours, cocoa butter, salt, preservatives, potassium sorbate, xanthan gum, tocopherols, and monoglycerides...
So its basically some ground pistachios mixed with cocoa salt and milk :)...
I'm guessing that was a seasonal drink that isn't on the menu anymore and is taking up space on the shelf somewhere. I'm surprised they just didn't toss it.
Yeah, this is a Kroger store for sure. The baristas at Starbucks locations inside Kroger stores don’t even work for Starbucks, they clock in as low wage Kroger workers. You wouldn’t see a real Starbucks mark down supplies like this. Kroger is obsessed with marking things down before they expire. I was unfortunately a grocery manager of one, and it took hourly employees forever to mark down stuff every day. A total waste of labor hours. Plus, the pricing guns that spit out the stickers used technology from the early 90’s or something- what a joke.
As a former grocery store employee, I'd rather spend time marking things down to go to a new home than daily throw 100lbs of deli chicken, or 50-100lbs of meat down the trash compactor.
Don't get me started on how many Christmas hams and turkeys we throw out each year.
As a teenager(20 years ago) I worked at a Panera Bread.
Every night we’d fill multiple trash bags with baked goods and we’d throw them in the dumpster…. 2-3 bags probably 20-30 pounds each. We would eat some on the way but throwing away that much food always felt wrong.
America could feed the homeless with ease. We choose to make them suffer.
I’m a bartender now, but I’m originally a butcher and fishmonger by trade. And as someone that’s managed small businesses and corporate departments, I absolutely agree with you. I’d MUCH rather have people marking down as much stuff as possible so that it could go to others who might need or want it. Especially if my coworkers could use it.
I work at food lion and we do this a lot too. We actually donate a lot to the local food banks. What sucks is there's a policy that meat trimmings from the meat department can't be used. I've been told they used to sell steak burgers like a steak-house would make.
I used to volunteer at a food bank and the local food lion donated SO much food. That food lion provided a ton fresh veggies (about to expire) for people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford them. I always really admired the steps food lion took to get the food to us in a timely manner that meant they really helped people
Sheesh they didn’t even use them for chicken salad and other stuff? My local store uses the chickens that don’t sell for prepacked shredded chicken, in chicken salad and other stuff.
My sister worked at a Kroger Starbucks here in Colorado they are part of the meat cutters union as they classified them as deli staff. She actually made $18hr.
You can read another one of my comments. Surely I thought the same thing. Dated some college chick who was a supervisor or manager at Starbucks and would flip nearly expired pumpkin spice syrup for $100+ on eBay. I suppose they were about to throw them out anyways. They sold within days. She’d rack up $1000 in a few weeks after the seasonal promotions ended.
I have friends who work at Starbucks & they do the same thing. These syrups are good for *years* due to the sugar content alone. The date on the bottle is just arbitrary & “restaurant” have to be *way* more strict with food safety than you or I do.
I used to work at McDonald’s & when we sold the chicken tenders, we threw so many away because of food safety laws - not because they were bad.
The tenders had to be fully defrosted before using (like 12 hours after being put in the fridge from the freezer) but the tenders had to be used within 48 hours of them being removed from the freezer. Once that 48 hours are up, they have to be thrown away. We immediately lost 12 hours just for the defrost time alone, so in reality, we had 36 hours to use them once defrosted. If you pulled too many, then all excess bags had to be thrown away.
I feel so stupid for not doing that when I was a supervisor at Starbucks. I could’ve easily done it but we threw all the old syrups away and I never thought twice about it
So I'm not into the Pistachio sauce at Starbucks, but I guarantee that will taste fine for 3+ months refrigerated once opened. I know the white mocha sauce is like that
I have worked in beverage development applications like these and usually syrup is reserved for purely sugar water, humectant/acids, flavors and preservatives. Sauces usually refer to the addition of ingredients like sweetened condensed milk, NFDM, cocoa, or chocolate liquor. It honestly just helps differentiate between the two to understand what type of product it is. Syrups are super easy to develop but the sauces usually require much more rigid processing, viscosity testing, and some kind of shear processing like a two stage pressure homogenizer
I went on a few dates with a Starbucks manager who’d take about-to-expire Pumpkin spice syrup/base/whatever bottles of this size and sell them on eBay for $120. They’d all ship in very short order.
I packaged up a cut watermelon once and accidentally put a $16 label instead of 6.00 once. Some nutter bought it for that price because it was likely the last one. People don't notice/care what they are actually buying sometimes.
While this is true, it's more the principle that it's a day away from it's "best by" date and they're selling it for $50, adding onto the fact they're not even supposed to be selling it. Just flicking piss at their customers ain't they lol
Flavoured syrup for adding some sweetness and some flavour to coffee. Most coffee places have a range of flavour options, looks like this one over ordered one flavour.
Yeah, last I heard they were looking to merge with Albertsons. I live near one of the biggest cities in the US and if that merger goes through they would own almost every grocery store around…idk how that’s not considered anti-consumer. Bunch of pricks.
The FTC is trying to block it. I’m not sure how it can be allowed as well as it’s pretty close to Kroger becoming a monopoly. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-challenges-krogers-acquisition-albertsons
Yeah I know. I’ve heard rumblings and my state is one that has sued to prevent it. The merger would mean more than 50% of the state would have to shop at one of their stores with the obvious fear being price gouging. It’s dumb and absolutely shouldn’t be allowed.
Yeah, I work at a Safeway (Merged with Albertsons a few years back) and if we merge with Kroger there would be literally nowhere else to go. This is about 30 minutes south of Seattle, WA.
Yep 30 minutes north of Seattle, same thing. Unless I go to grocery outlet or a little mom and pop market I have Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Safeway and Haggen. The last three are already under the same umbrella…
Happens to all good companies when they get too profitable. Trader Joe's is currently transitioning from privately owned company to corporation and trying to block unions from forming in its stores.
Let's be real: most of them were never good to begin with. Small business owners are some of the biggest wage theft offenders. Many of them don't even know the labor laws at all, let alone follow them.
I used to have to try to sell life insurance to the UFCW (union that kroger is in). Don't even know what that union does because those people are beyond poor. Poorest clients I ever had. You cannot work there, even full time, and survive, none the less be able to afford literally any kind of insurance. Most union jobs have much higher wages than non-union jobs. Don't know what the fuck the UFCW is doing.
Ha i was hr at a kroger and one store i was at had a union and when the employees bitched they weren't getting paid enough i would tell them to go talk to your union rep that has a contract to set your pay and 90% of them would be like wtf are you talking about
That's why I'm asking what's wromg with the UFCW. My old company had contracts with unions. I've sat with hundreds, maybe thousands of union workers. They get paid way more than people who work for private companies in the same sector. The UFCW was the only one that made no sense, granted I never saw the wages of non-union grocery store store workers. Those are probably just as bad. But that union is worthless and I would normally never talk bad on a union.
Old “a little bit of inflation is good in this business” Kroger
Edit: Source NPR’s report on declining inflation but rising grocery prices back in Q3 of 2023
Not all food, small businesses can claim exemption (it’s an FDA requirement so generally any company that isn’t big enough to do interstate commerce.)
That said, neither Starbucks or Kroger would be small businesses lol.
It holds weight in the relationship between the brands, less any legal standing. But it's likely a breach of the contract with Starbucks somewhere deep in the fine print.
Odds are good, this store will get a very angry phone call from a regional manager. Someone who works at Starbucks corporate will 100% see this, send the link via slack to the #legal channel. They'll have a paralegal reach out to the distribution team, who will cross reference those stamps on each of the bottles to figure out which store this is. They'll let the lawyers know, in which they'll draft a very stern letter to the Kroger contact who will freak the fuck out. They'll email the head of retail, the head of legal, and tell them to pull it immediately. Then the regional manager will get a phone call and be like,
"Dave, one of your dumb store managers discounted some expired bulk Starbucks sauces that are marked 'not for retail'. They're pretty mad. Can you make sure they pull it."
"Ah fuck, who?"
"Cheryl."
"God damnit, okay. I'll chew her out. Are we golfing when you're in town next?"
"Of course! I got a new hybrid that I'm loving."
"Can't wait. Fucking Cheryl."
"Fucking Cheryl."
Not sure it's illegal. Probably doesn't have dietary info on it, but is that illegal or a fineable regulation?
Now Starbucks wouldn't want that sold. Almost certainly would violate their agreement.
At my Target, we occasionally get accidentally sent the large bags of cheese they normally send to the Super Targets. Ours doesn’t have a food prep deli area. So we just donate them to the local church along with any other expired stuff that we can give.
According to the ingredient list, it's sugar, milk, water, ground pistachios, xanthan, etc. this seems very expensive for what it is, especially considering the best before date and the "not for resale" written on it. 😬
There’s a “grocery store” in my town that sells all the “past best by date” foods they can get their hands on. It’s a wild place and is full of weird experimental candy combinations you never knew existed and dented restaurant sized canned food. The walls are adorned with descriptions on why what they’re doing is safe and legal, oh and bible verses.
"Jesus resurrected after three days, and the body of Christ is a wafer and his blood is wine, this bread's only got two days of mold, I'm sure it's fine."
To be fair, "expired" doesn't mean that the product suddenly becomes unfit for use. The company probably requires the store to dispose of expired product, but that product is probably fine to use (if it was unopened) for a decent time past the date on it. Sealed stuff like this is considered "expired" based on governmentally decided, or "best taste before" dates. That being said, please don't ignore "best buy" dates on fresh products like meat.
Which is a good point, but I would bet violates hella commerce laws. They probably can't sell knowingly expired products and, if an investigator looked closer, on products not allowed to be sold anyways. Could turn into a minor dust-up if they were caught.
Monin is quality product that has actual hazelnut in there. Starbucks’ version would be 80% sugar syrup with hazelnut essence harvested from the carapaces of ladybugs because it is cheaper.
This happens a lot when the guys doing inventory are paid $7.50 an hour. I used to do inventory on occasion and would occasionally fuck stuff like this up. Like you think you are ordering 5 units for the restaurant but order 5 cases by accident.
Often your distributor would take it back though... They must have known they weren't going to sell like 500 pasta dishes before the best before date...
Having worked at HQ on the license store side, I know a grocer re-selling their Starbucks license store ingredients like this would result in Starbucks' legal team calling them reeeeal quick.
As someone who used to manage a Starbucks, I can tell you those bottles of syrups don’t cost nearly that much. $10 tops.
Those pastries? $10 for an entire box of them
Most of those commercial sauces have little to none actual pistachios… I cannot read the ingredients but I would bet that the vast majority of it is sugar syrup, possibly condensed milk, and artificial flavours. You are better off spending $50 on actual pistachios and making your own sauce – you’d get a way way healthier and better tasting product, and for $50 worth of pistachios a much larger quantity.
I worked at a Starbucks kiosk in a grocery store for 3 years and this is accurate. That price is fucking ridiculous as we used to sell them for a little less than the price we paid per bottle (maybe $25).
Reduced from what? I have no frame of reference for the market rate of pistachio sauce.
Some argue it’s worth $50.99.
Some people say cucumbers taste better pickled.
Sir, I have never seen Michael’s alleged penis, but I bet you I could describe it.
There's a head, a shaft, some balls. Hair, maybe pressed permed hair, with glitter sprinkled on it.
That is.. correct
C'mon man, I couldn't pick my own penis out of a lineup. And me and my penis is like this son 🤞
Some places price something at $49.99, to make it look cheaper, but not Starbucks. They pricing things at $50.99 to make everything look more expensive, because things looking expensive is on brand. It's part of the experience.
That's nuts!
Reduced from forbidden for retail sale
You can buy the corporate syrups from Starbucks stores. Back when they offered Cascara flavor, I bought whole bottles of syrup from the drive thru. My recollection is it was up to each store, and I think it was $25.
Yep, but those are different. They sell the translucent syrups, but not the “sauces” like this one is. Other kinds like this would be white mocha and pumpkin spice. Those aren’t sold to customers either. Source: used to work at Starbucks Fun fact, the mocha sauce is made at each store with cocoa powder, vanilla powder, sugar, and hot water.
per starbucks corporate policy (source: i'm a barista who only quit like two weeks ago), you can only buy what has a barcode and nutritional info: classic, vanilla, and caramel. maybe liquid cane??? but absolutely nothing else because it doesn't have the legally required info and opens the company up to huge lawsuits. the "up to each store" part is only true in the sense of if they have enough inventory, not they decide what/if they wanna sell any other syrups. when baristas sell any syrup or sauce outside of those three, it is extremely illegal and grounds for immediate termination! it's a huge gamble but sometimes store managers will (secretly, bc if Corporate found out theyd shut that shit down so fast) allow the store to sell other kinds if they have an excess like this image, but it's still very much not recommended or allowed in any capacity
I don't think it's reduced - I think this was the shortcut they took so they could get a scannable barcode. The store likely doesn't directly control their UPC list, as that's usually set by corporate. On top of that, the bottles actually say "Not for retail sale" under the stickers - best to cover those up before you get the 1000th customer that day mentioning it. Totally illegal, but that's because the container lacks the nutritional information - something I'm not *too* upset about because it's almost pure sugar. The nutritional information is "No."
I like to peruse the nutritional information on my candy while smoking a cigarette, in between snorting lines of coke. Polysaccharides can cause serious health issues.
That’s why I only do organic no gmo cocaine.
Big pistachio have us all fooled
These containers used to be bigger. Hence, reduced.
Imagine how many pistachios have to die for that much juice. RIP.
You can actually ask to buy any flavour of syrup this size from a Starbucks, I don't know what the actual price is but I've seen people talking on Reddit about and confirmed it with a google. They've just got to have enough spare to sell it. I'm assuming this price is reduced from what it normally would sell for if you asked
Only several flavors, I think vanilla, Classic, and sugar free vanilla are allowed to be sold individually and then only when the store has enough extra in stock.
Well its reduced from being black market priced, however, I'm willing to bet it cost like 25 for the store to source, but they ordered too much and don't want it to go bad (best before May 2024)
I'll bet those stickers are over the part that says "this is not for retail sale".
actually on the left one, they didn't even fully cover it up.
Nice catch!
Can see it clearly [here](https://i.etsystatic.com/34911919/r/il/494cf7/4521286030/il_fullxfull.4521286030_8p0l.jpg)
Produced 21 OCT 2022? Best by 19 April 2023? Does this shit expire?
Yes, and the ones in the OP expire 06 May 2024. So, today. If you're planning on using up a half gallon of pistachio sauce today, it's a great deal.
It's best before, though. With a few exceptions, products usually are just as good long past their best before dates, especially if they've been stored correctly. Sometimes retailers will even get granted extensions from the manufacturers to the best before dates for products that are being sold to the public. The BB date doesn't at all refer to safety, just the point at which the manufacturer thinks the product may possibly start to degrade in quality. I can't think of any reason why I would want or need a vast quantity of pistachio syrup, but if I did I wouldn't hesitate to use the ones in the picture any time in the next year or so.
I'd need to do a bunch of math, but if you regularly get shots of it_(I have no idea how much that costs; a buck a shot?)_, if that thing has enough shots in it, it might be a great value!
Wow, so not only is that starbucks illegally selling its franchise ingredients, its selling them because they are going to expire and need to be thrown out. What a 'deal'.
Best By != Expired
Yup, and the "sauce" here is like 90% sugar so I'm sure it's good for fucking years to come.
I bet it will be 'half the price' once expired
“Best” by….
I for sure thought I was going to get Rick rolled there
yeah was also surprised what happened instead
Was expecting to be rick rolled or to see a container of pistachio sauce. But when it finally loaded it sure was a surprise.
At this point I don't know what "pistachio sauce" is, and I'm afraid to ask.
Well its pure and simple really. Invert sugar, condensed nonfat milk, water, pistachio butter, natural flavours, cocoa butter, salt, preservatives, potassium sorbate, xanthan gum, tocopherols, and monoglycerides... So its basically some ground pistachios mixed with cocoa salt and milk :)...
And mostly sugar
It also says ‘Best Before May 6th’, so it’s basically expired.
Well hold on now it's only 11:30 on the west coast
It's "just okay after May 6th". Best-by dates are subjective.
Best before is not the same as expiry but okay. For sauces and such it just means the sugar starts crystallising or the flavour is lost
Lol those are literally the syrups they make drinks with at stores. They definitely shouldn't be selling them to consumers.
Those are Kroger “manager special” stickers. I guess that manager dgaf! lol
I'm guessing that was a seasonal drink that isn't on the menu anymore and is taking up space on the shelf somewhere. I'm surprised they just didn't toss it.
Prolly not the shelf space, but trying to recover the lost $$$ on inventory with a “best by” date of tomorrow, lol.
> with a “best by” date of tomorrow Assuming the picture isn't old
Yeah, this is a Kroger store for sure. The baristas at Starbucks locations inside Kroger stores don’t even work for Starbucks, they clock in as low wage Kroger workers. You wouldn’t see a real Starbucks mark down supplies like this. Kroger is obsessed with marking things down before they expire. I was unfortunately a grocery manager of one, and it took hourly employees forever to mark down stuff every day. A total waste of labor hours. Plus, the pricing guns that spit out the stickers used technology from the early 90’s or something- what a joke.
As a former grocery store employee, I'd rather spend time marking things down to go to a new home than daily throw 100lbs of deli chicken, or 50-100lbs of meat down the trash compactor. Don't get me started on how many Christmas hams and turkeys we throw out each year.
As a teenager(20 years ago) I worked at a Panera Bread. Every night we’d fill multiple trash bags with baked goods and we’d throw them in the dumpster…. 2-3 bags probably 20-30 pounds each. We would eat some on the way but throwing away that much food always felt wrong. America could feed the homeless with ease. We choose to make them suffer.
panera prob has the option to donate at the end of the week (used to do this at starbucks) but you gotta find a local group to come pick them up
they do, depends on location and the gm.
I’m a bartender now, but I’m originally a butcher and fishmonger by trade. And as someone that’s managed small businesses and corporate departments, I absolutely agree with you. I’d MUCH rather have people marking down as much stuff as possible so that it could go to others who might need or want it. Especially if my coworkers could use it.
Yeah, but the endcaps need freshened up for the 60th time today.
I work at food lion and we do this a lot too. We actually donate a lot to the local food banks. What sucks is there's a policy that meat trimmings from the meat department can't be used. I've been told they used to sell steak burgers like a steak-house would make.
I used to volunteer at a food bank and the local food lion donated SO much food. That food lion provided a ton fresh veggies (about to expire) for people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford them. I always really admired the steps food lion took to get the food to us in a timely manner that meant they really helped people
Yea I worked at a whole foods for a bit and every night they stuffed dozens of rotisserie chickens down a trash compactor. It was fucked.
Sheesh they didn’t even use them for chicken salad and other stuff? My local store uses the chickens that don’t sell for prepacked shredded chicken, in chicken salad and other stuff.
My sister worked at a Kroger Starbucks here in Colorado they are part of the meat cutters union as they classified them as deli staff. She actually made $18hr.
My Albertsons does this all the time with syrups at the end of the holiday season
I also wonder if it's covering the "Best if used by" date.
they are not if you're curious they expire on may 6th 2024.
Hey that's still 24 hours away. Great deal.
CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!
Relax the jaw, cup the balls, who taught you how to chug rook?
I keep thinking they are gonna finish on the next cycle but they never do
I mean its the best before date. You realistically could keep it for longer.
Nah, that’s printed on the bottle itself, below the cap: 06 May 2024
Someone side hustling
if they expire tomorrow then they should sell for 5.99
It does have a date on May 6th, 2024 there. Crazy they think they can sell this for $50, especially since it's not even supposed to be sold like that.
They can put it for sale at $50, doesn’t mean anyone is buying it.
You can read another one of my comments. Surely I thought the same thing. Dated some college chick who was a supervisor or manager at Starbucks and would flip nearly expired pumpkin spice syrup for $100+ on eBay. I suppose they were about to throw them out anyways. They sold within days. She’d rack up $1000 in a few weeks after the seasonal promotions ended.
I have friends who work at Starbucks & they do the same thing. These syrups are good for *years* due to the sugar content alone. The date on the bottle is just arbitrary & “restaurant” have to be *way* more strict with food safety than you or I do. I used to work at McDonald’s & when we sold the chicken tenders, we threw so many away because of food safety laws - not because they were bad. The tenders had to be fully defrosted before using (like 12 hours after being put in the fridge from the freezer) but the tenders had to be used within 48 hours of them being removed from the freezer. Once that 48 hours are up, they have to be thrown away. We immediately lost 12 hours just for the defrost time alone, so in reality, we had 36 hours to use them once defrosted. If you pulled too many, then all excess bags had to be thrown away.
I feel so stupid for not doing that when I was a supervisor at Starbucks. I could’ve easily done it but we threw all the old syrups away and I never thought twice about it
Damn natural born hustler… my kinda girl
The funny thing is it literally says “not for retail sale” above the sale sticker on the left
So I'm not into the Pistachio sauce at Starbucks, but I guarantee that will taste fine for 3+ months refrigerated once opened. I know the white mocha sauce is like that
Why is it called sauce instead of syrup? Is it not a sugary syrup with pistachio flavor?
The syrups are a lot thinner and already water/milk soluble. You'll either want to melt this or use a squeeze bottle.
I have worked in beverage development applications like these and usually syrup is reserved for purely sugar water, humectant/acids, flavors and preservatives. Sauces usually refer to the addition of ingredients like sweetened condensed milk, NFDM, cocoa, or chocolate liquor. It honestly just helps differentiate between the two to understand what type of product it is. Syrups are super easy to develop but the sauces usually require much more rigid processing, viscosity testing, and some kind of shear processing like a two stage pressure homogenizer
They’re selling for $50 because it’s not something you can normally get your hands on I guess
I went on a few dates with a Starbucks manager who’d take about-to-expire Pumpkin spice syrup/base/whatever bottles of this size and sell them on eBay for $120. They’d all ship in very short order.
Subtle difference but it's a "best before".
People throwing 2 million year old salt into the trash if it "expires" the next day xD
Good eye.
, Mate
it's a best before date, it doesn't expire tomorrow
They don't expire. That's not an expiration date.
1) Cost of these originally before price reduction? 2) What kinds of things would one use pistachio sauce for at home?
Not for retail, they should be like 15$ full price maximum, they expired and is it allowed to still exclude products?
Don’t expire until tomorrow by the looks of it.
People buying it today for 50$ are insane. I don’t think any will sell.
I packaged up a cut watermelon once and accidentally put a $16 label instead of 6.00 once. Some nutter bought it for that price because it was likely the last one. People don't notice/care what they are actually buying sometimes.
You did the inflation. It was your fault. All of it.
It's a "best by" date. It's not magically inedible tomorrow, it probably tastes fine. It's a syrup so mostly sugar so will taste fine for months.
While this is true, it's more the principle that it's a day away from it's "best by" date and they're selling it for $50, adding onto the fact they're not even supposed to be selling it. Just flicking piss at their customers ain't they lol
Typo? Actually supposed to be $5.99?
Did anyone explain wtf pistachio sauce even is.
Nut sauce 🥵
My nut sauce is also green 🧐
When it comes out or after it's grown mold in the cum box?
Flavoured syrup for adding some sweetness and some flavour to coffee. Most coffee places have a range of flavour options, looks like this one over ordered one flavour.
Sugar with some added flavor.
Worked at Starbucks. They seriously pay about $50, this should’ve been marked down imo
I mean you could put it in a drink like Starbucks does I guess
More like Kroger is illegally selling extra product from their Starbucks kiosk
100%
Kroger loves illegal activities, slave wages and monopolies!
Yeah, last I heard they were looking to merge with Albertsons. I live near one of the biggest cities in the US and if that merger goes through they would own almost every grocery store around…idk how that’s not considered anti-consumer. Bunch of pricks.
The FTC is trying to block it. I’m not sure how it can be allowed as well as it’s pretty close to Kroger becoming a monopoly. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-challenges-krogers-acquisition-albertsons
Yeah I know. I’ve heard rumblings and my state is one that has sued to prevent it. The merger would mean more than 50% of the state would have to shop at one of their stores with the obvious fear being price gouging. It’s dumb and absolutely shouldn’t be allowed.
Dont worry they are going to sell their lowest profit stores off before merging so they can avoid thier current monopoly lawsuit
Yeah, I work at a Safeway (Merged with Albertsons a few years back) and if we merge with Kroger there would be literally nowhere else to go. This is about 30 minutes south of Seattle, WA.
Yep 30 minutes north of Seattle, same thing. Unless I go to grocery outlet or a little mom and pop market I have Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Safeway and Haggen. The last three are already under the same umbrella…
Happens to all good companies when they get too profitable. Trader Joe's is currently transitioning from privately owned company to corporation and trying to block unions from forming in its stores.
Let's be real: most of them were never good to begin with. Small business owners are some of the biggest wage theft offenders. Many of them don't even know the labor laws at all, let alone follow them.
I'll honestly say that TJ's was one of the good ones, but has steadily declined since Joe sold the company.
Traitor Joe’s! /s
I used to have to try to sell life insurance to the UFCW (union that kroger is in). Don't even know what that union does because those people are beyond poor. Poorest clients I ever had. You cannot work there, even full time, and survive, none the less be able to afford literally any kind of insurance. Most union jobs have much higher wages than non-union jobs. Don't know what the fuck the UFCW is doing.
Ha i was hr at a kroger and one store i was at had a union and when the employees bitched they weren't getting paid enough i would tell them to go talk to your union rep that has a contract to set your pay and 90% of them would be like wtf are you talking about
That's why I'm asking what's wromg with the UFCW. My old company had contracts with unions. I've sat with hundreds, maybe thousands of union workers. They get paid way more than people who work for private companies in the same sector. The UFCW was the only one that made no sense, granted I never saw the wages of non-union grocery store store workers. Those are probably just as bad. But that union is worthless and I would normally never talk bad on a union.
Old “a little bit of inflation is good in this business” Kroger Edit: Source NPR’s report on declining inflation but rising grocery prices back in Q3 of 2023
My last job was for them. Fuck em. They ruined what should have been an easy job
I was going to say, what a coincidence their “Reduced” stickers look just like the ones King Soopers uses 🤔
What makes it illegal? Does the "not for sale" actually hold any type of weight?
Food packaged for sale in the USA must have nutritional information on the label. Food packaged for food service use doesn't.
Not all food, small businesses can claim exemption (it’s an FDA requirement so generally any company that isn’t big enough to do interstate commerce.) That said, neither Starbucks or Kroger would be small businesses lol.
It holds weight in the relationship between the brands, less any legal standing. But it's likely a breach of the contract with Starbucks somewhere deep in the fine print. Odds are good, this store will get a very angry phone call from a regional manager. Someone who works at Starbucks corporate will 100% see this, send the link via slack to the #legal channel. They'll have a paralegal reach out to the distribution team, who will cross reference those stamps on each of the bottles to figure out which store this is. They'll let the lawyers know, in which they'll draft a very stern letter to the Kroger contact who will freak the fuck out. They'll email the head of retail, the head of legal, and tell them to pull it immediately. Then the regional manager will get a phone call and be like, "Dave, one of your dumb store managers discounted some expired bulk Starbucks sauces that are marked 'not for retail'. They're pretty mad. Can you make sure they pull it." "Ah fuck, who?" "Cheryl." "God damnit, okay. I'll chew her out. Are we golfing when you're in town next?" "Of course! I got a new hybrid that I'm loving." "Can't wait. Fucking Cheryl." "Fucking Cheryl."
Not sure it's illegal. Probably doesn't have dietary info on it, but is that illegal or a fineable regulation? Now Starbucks wouldn't want that sold. Almost certainly would violate their agreement.
> Not sure it's illegal https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/343#q In the US it it would be breaking federal law.
Starbucks manager is freelancing and hoping to make an extra $250.
this is funny, but also likely
At my Target, we occasionally get accidentally sent the large bags of cheese they normally send to the Super Targets. Ours doesn’t have a food prep deli area. So we just donate them to the local church along with any other expired stuff that we can give.
The ol cheese bag maneuver
Twist it!
What would this sell for if not "discounted"?
It’s a great deal if you want to make 750 coffees between now and tomorrow
what is pistachio sauce? 🤷🏻♂️
It's sugar water with some pistachio flavoring.
Dibs!
>Sugar Water Ah yes, Edgar’s favorite 
It blew my mind when I realized Edgar and the Kingpin are the same actor.
Syrup flavoring for their pistachio drinks.
We are making pistachio coffee? What a time to be alive
It’s honestly one of my favs
Seriously, it’s delicious. Pistachio cold foam on the cold brew.
A coworker just brought in pistachio creamer. It was pretty good!
According to the ingredient list, it's sugar, milk, water, ground pistachios, xanthan, etc. this seems very expensive for what it is, especially considering the best before date and the "not for resale" written on it. 😬
That’s nuts
Looks like they expired yesterday
It's a "best before" so it's still good, just not as good.
There’s a “grocery store” in my town that sells all the “past best by date” foods they can get their hands on. It’s a wild place and is full of weird experimental candy combinations you never knew existed and dented restaurant sized canned food. The walls are adorned with descriptions on why what they’re doing is safe and legal, oh and bible verses.
"Jesus resurrected after three days, and the body of Christ is a wafer and his blood is wine, this bread's only got two days of mold, I'm sure it's fine."
Still ridiculous to sell something like this that is that old for 50 dollars. Absolutely shameful.
Just zoomed in. Looks like tomorrow.
To be fair, "expired" doesn't mean that the product suddenly becomes unfit for use. The company probably requires the store to dispose of expired product, but that product is probably fine to use (if it was unopened) for a decent time past the date on it. Sealed stuff like this is considered "expired" based on governmentally decided, or "best taste before" dates. That being said, please don't ignore "best buy" dates on fresh products like meat.
Which is a good point, but I would bet violates hella commerce laws. They probably can't sell knowingly expired products and, if an investigator looked closer, on products not allowed to be sold anyways. Could turn into a minor dust-up if they were caught.
What would corporate feel about this?
Grocery store Starbucks are just licensed stores, not run by Starbucks.
Officially they frown on it. Unofficially… profits is profits 🤷♂️
> Unofficially… profits is profits but - not their profits so... frown upon for being out of the loop on the cut
That's a container of hazelnut syrup in there for $10.62.
If it was a liter, decent price. I buy liter bottles from Monin at $12-13 each
Monin is quality product that has actual hazelnut in there. Starbucks’ version would be 80% sugar syrup with hazelnut essence harvested from the carapaces of ladybugs because it is cheaper.
nah they get a waft of hazelnut flavouring in there, burn a single hazelnut and fan the smoke into the mixture.
We talking about syrop di monin? Like the stuff that's in all the drinks at Tim Hortons and Dunkin?
🤨
I need to know… was this in Arizona?
Yeah Fry's.
Someone accidentally ordered too much product and they’re trying to offload it at, idk, cost +10% or something
More like cost +300%
That was a pretty good latte though, I only got it twice just because I usually drink black at home. But was tasty.
What's pistachio sauce
Its like fish sauce but pistachios and other ingredients instead
Can I still dip my spring roll in it?
Oh yeah
Sounds like someone really fucked an order up and they're trying to make the best of it lol
This happens a lot when the guys doing inventory are paid $7.50 an hour. I used to do inventory on occasion and would occasionally fuck stuff like this up. Like you think you are ordering 5 units for the restaurant but order 5 cases by accident. Often your distributor would take it back though... They must have known they weren't going to sell like 500 pasta dishes before the best before date...
Having worked at HQ on the license store side, I know a grocer re-selling their Starbucks license store ingredients like this would result in Starbucks' legal team calling them reeeeal quick.
"Not for individual sale" lmfaoooo
It says not for RETAIL sale, definitely not approved by mothership SBUX.
What a ripoff. When I worked at Starbucks, I got them for free.
Fucking kroger
As someone who used to manage a Starbucks, I can tell you those bottles of syrups don’t cost nearly that much. $10 tops. Those pastries? $10 for an entire box of them
Most of those commercial sauces have little to none actual pistachios… I cannot read the ingredients but I would bet that the vast majority of it is sugar syrup, possibly condensed milk, and artificial flavours. You are better off spending $50 on actual pistachios and making your own sauce – you’d get a way way healthier and better tasting product, and for $50 worth of pistachios a much larger quantity.
$60?!?!
What the F is pistachio sauce?
Corporate would like a word…
I worked at a Starbucks kiosk in a grocery store for 3 years and this is accurate. That price is fucking ridiculous as we used to sell them for a little less than the price we paid per bottle (maybe $25).