Despite my wishful thinking otherwise (I kept hoping that it was an aberration), Peet's Coffee has eliminated the roast date from its commercial packaging.
Perhaps not as big a deal as it might seem at first: as Peet's explains at its website, the packaging's listed "freshest by" date is 120 days from the roast date, and so one can back up for the date of roast and otherwise purchase a package with the furthest away best-by date. But still. And this would seem to capitalize on those consumers who don't know any better.
Explaining why it eliminated the packaging's roast date, Peet's states, "The most important information for consumers at the point of purchase is how much time or freshness is left on the product they are about to buy. So we simplified our packaging to only include that information." "Our freshness dating was determined by coffee experts who conducted diligent testing on the quality of our coffee over time which indicated that at 120 days our coffee meets our high quality standards."
Right. Sigh.
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