Pillsbury’s Cookie Dough Drop Is Four Months Early

Okay. Now it’s getting totally silly, folks. A few weeks ago, we brought you the news that Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte Creamer had arrived at Target – in the middle of June, before summer’s even started, ahead of PSL season in the fall. This forward thinking felt premature then, and it feels premature now. 

Videos by Sporked

But that was just the start – because Pillsbury has now one-upped Starbucks with the release of a cookie dough that, frankly, we shouldn’t be seeing before October. Come on, people. The weather’s only just heating up!

Boo!

Yes, apparently, Pillsbury’s ready for us to start getting spooky: The same source that brought us the news of Starbucks’ PSL creamer being released this month, @candyhunting, has now found packs of Pillsbury Pumpkin Shape Sugar Cookie Dough and Pumpkin Cookie Dough at Walmart. A Halloween cookie. At the end of June. We guess there’s gentle relief in the fact that we’re not seeing Christmas foods yet, but at this rate, they’ll be landing next week!

In case we’re coming across as devoid of any Halloween spirit or sense of fun whatsoever, we hasten to point out that we’re not the only ones who feel that this release is premature. “I love Halloween but this is way, way too early,” stated a comment on @candyhunting’s post. The Instagrammer themselves points out that Halloween is still well over 120 days, or four months, away. Hell, we don’t really usually start our coverage of Halloween snacks and candy until the start of October. This. Is. Early.

Halloween Creep?

Holiday items arriving in stores earlier and earlier is nothing new: The phenomenon of Christmas creep has been occurring for decades, with retailers incrementally extending their self-prescribed holiday periods to maximize customer spend. Generally, though, stores wait until towards the end of the summer to introduce holiday items; they don’t do so before it’s even begun.

But hey, maybe Halloween creep is now a thing, and we’ll have to start reckoning with spooky season ever earlier each year. What next? Easter items in October? July 4 foods in January? These days, nothing is off the cards.