I Shopped at Trader Joe's

for the first time this weekend. I thought it was a great experience! There were people shopping from every walk of life, and plenty of Kerry/Edwards, No War, and other Progressive bumperstickers in the parking lot. I was smiling from ear to ear when I left!

Has anyone else shopped there? What do you like/dislike about Trader Joe's?


AFSCME girl
:hi:

The whole wheat English muffins are 1/2 the price of other stores. I like their soy nuggets too. I also get bagged salad mixes for less than elsewhere. I really like shopping there.

Aren't their prices great? I purchased 2 pkgs. of the English Muffins on Saturday. I also like the Oregon Chai Tea in the carton ~ it is $1.70 cheaper at Trader Joe's than at the regular supermarket. TJ's definitely found a new customer with me!

:hi:

yummy stuff. ( those chocolate covered fruits in different colors, oh, my )

one of my friends found 'grapples' there. a grape tasting apple. they must be a sometime thing 'cause i couldn't find them.

they have this unfiltered organic Gala apple juice there that's just awesome.

Sadly, we don't have them in Florida (any surprise there)? But I always shop there when I visit Columbus, Ohio and L.A. Usually I bring and extra big suitcase and stock up on dry goods. The prices and quality are excellent.

none in TX either. :( yet...

and some good unique products. Can't get everything you might want however, but I can fill in the gaps at the drugstore a couple of doors down.

When I first heard of them I was suspicious that their prices would be high. I was happily surprised. Their prices are reasonable on most things and downright cheap on others! Now I've been shopping there for a few years and since the election fiasco, I've changed to do virtually ALL my grocery shopping there. It's the only place nearby where I can find organic food, grass-fed beef, etc. As for the other things they don't carry....I get them at Costco. I feel so good to have shifted my $500 a month for groceries from the red to the blue column! :bounce:

OnionPatch! Isn't great to shop at a progressive place?! I love it!! :bounce:

AFSCME girl
:hi:

I buy a large portion of my groceries there. The one complaint I have is their Organic Milk is weird. It has cream on top so there's a layer of fat on it when you open it. Even the fat free type. I love their frozen garlic cubes.

Used to be that's the way they delivered it to your house. You would carefully take off the cardboard plug and pour out the cream to save for your coffee, or whatever. I barely remember it.

zalinda

WOW... when I was growing up that is the way it came

Save it, with a little sugar on toast it is GREAT

Oh the memories from growing up

They have so many things you can't find elsewhere, or would have a really hard time tracking down. I love the dried fruits, multi grain breads, flat-breads, fat free jalapeno cheese, rice crackers and scores of other items. Most of their prices are reasonable or downright cheap too.

The only two things I don't like are that the closest one is 20 miles from my house, and I still have to go to a 'regular' store to get some of the stuff I need/want because Joe's is not a regular sized store.

Still, they rock :yourock:

is that there aren't any in Texas!

I have been known to fill a backpack with Trader Joe's goodies and take it as my carryon on the flight back from trips home.

Go to a Walmart, and most of the people look they've just been slapped on the back of the head.

there is a very distinct difference in people at TJ's and other retail establishments.

:hi:

And yes, they were treated very well. One left because he was moving out of state, and the other because of a mental health crisis that led her to go on disability for a time. But they were very happy while they were there.

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Try the fresh salsa...it is amazing!

I hadn't shopped in a different grocery store since the grocery worker's lockout/strike over a year ago. I recently moved, and the closest TJs is 2.5 hours away. :-(

So I went to my local grocery store; poor selection for the kinds of things I buy, poorer prices, and they all want personal information for a membership card so that they can keep track of my spending habits. :eyes:

We do have a large local health food grocery/deli; it's good, but priced out of my budget. I may have to plan a trip over the mountains every month or so!

I've been shopping at TJs for about 20 years, since the time before they had their own brands of anything, before they carried anything regularly, when everything they had was special buys, odd lots, and such. When you went there, you never knew what they'd have, you were pretty sure they wouldn't have what they had last time because they would have sold all they had by your next visit. They evolved gradually into something quite different yet still with a similar atmosphere, and the same people who loved it then still love it now.

I do as much grocery shopping there as possible, which means most of it. I go to TJs at least once a week, and go to one of the major supermarkets about once a month or less, for stuff that TJ doesn't carry.

If it's in TJs, it's good stuff and at a better price than you can get anywhere else. If they can't sell it for less than anyone else, they just don't carry it. They also have a lot of slightly odd or weird stuff that you won't find elsewhere. Recently they've started adding a bunch of new frozen veggie mixtures that nobody else has.

Recently (within the last year or two, I think) they put in checkout scanners. Until then, the checkers did all the prices manually on old-fashioned cash registers. It was the most amazing thing--in all those years of shopping there, I never once found an error in the price of something on my bill. Now that they have scanners, I get errors, but the errors are as likely to be in my favor as in the store's favor, so they balance out. In contrast, at any of the major chains, 95% of the scanner "errors" are in the store's favor. (I'm nerdy enough to write down every price as I put in the shopping cart and check them when I get home.)

One other cool thing is their sometimes odd sense of humor. The "Fearless Flyer" advertising flyer has very offbeat cartoons and sometimes offbeat descriptions of products. They have offbeat house brands for different kinds of products: their vitamins have the Trader Darwin ("for survival of the fittest") brand, Italian foods are Trader Guiseppe, and several others.

There are two things that sometimes irritate me about TJs: A lot of the shoppers there are annoyingly self-absorbed and obnoxiously block the narrow aisles, blissfully unaware or uncaring that anyone else exists in the universe, much less anyone who wants to go down the same aisle. And the store where I go most often seems to have a "just-out-of-time" inventory system so they frequently are out of stock for things I want; however, that seems to have improved recently. Maybe they tuned their "just-in-time" algorithms.

The ones who don't seem to have any concept that they're not the only ones in the store. My local TJ is FULL of them every time I go.

Other than that, I love the place.

The aisles are narrow, so I try to be extra considerate, but most aren't. A new store recently opened and it's not as tight as the others, so I much prefer to go to that one.

...they are SO narrow that you can't stop and LOOK at anything without pissing SOMEONE off. When I go with my kids, I usually only get half of the stuff I meant to get, because I'm always "moving along" because I'm conscious of holding everyone up if I stop.

Never had a problem with the people though.

So many great things at Trader Joes! I clean EVERYTHING with that Trader Zen's spray cleaner...nice sandalwood smell and it does sinks, toilets, appliances, windows...love that stuff.

didn't buy any. Have you tried the Jo-Jo's creme-filled cookies yet? They are awesome, too. I also bought the veggie meatballs ~ which the cashier told me were great, as well. The only thing I have found, so far, that I didn't care for was the TJ's Spanish Rice (in a box).

:hi:

an awesome "BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED" bumpersticker as I was walking into TJ's to shop. I went on CafePress.com yesterday and ordered one for myself. :bounce:

I have been shopping there every payday ~ and I still love it!

AFSCME girl

is that each store has it's own artistic style. Remember seeing those little hand calligraph ed labels? My son's good friend works for a store in this area and she is solely responsible for creating those little blurbs about each item that goes on the shelf in her store, and there is someone like her in every location. This reflects a rather different attitude about "values" than a simple bottom-line spreadsheet approach.

This one was in Glenview, IL.

I bought some coffee in the canister (which hubby is very happy with- he's quite a coffee snob). Also some Masala Chai tea, some white tea, and this awesome organic dark chocolate.

I couldn't buy TOO much since I knew I was going to be stocking up on genealogy books etc (turned out I got $300 worth!)

Had a great conversation with my checker when she saw my anti-fundie buttons, and she was very pleased to see that I was from Texas. The people behind me in line got a chickle out of that too.

I wanna go back! :cry:

It is about 1/4 mile from my home, which is great. My son and I walk there on week-ends sometimes, and then stop to get an ice cream at the Foster Freeze nearby on our way home.

I love their organic products,and they have so many of them! I buy their organic grassfed ground beef, their smoked deli turkey. I especially love the Fire Roasted Balsamic Vegetables in the frozen section; plus their frozen battered cod and tapia. Mmmmmmm good. I buy my son's apple juice boxes for his lunches there, plus their dunkers chocolate chip cookies.

They treat their employees very well. I have two friends who work for the Trader Joe's in Napa and they love working there. Their cashiers are friendly and courteous. Their prices are good. What's not to like?

While they tout how all of their TJ's brand of cosmetics are "cruelty free" on the next aisle, the TJ's brand of eggs is from Battery caged hens, which is an incredibly inhumane practice.

The Humane Society of the US requested that they change this, and TJ's president gave them a rude response, and posted some misleading information on their website. You can read more here.

http://www.hsus.org/farm_animals/farm_animals_news/trader_joes_still_hiding_behind_animal_care_certified.html

I sent a letter to their President asking for clarification, and have recieved no reply.

http://www.trackingtraderjoes.com/2005/11/trader_joes_to_.html

Trader Joe's to Stop Selling Caged Eggs
The Humane Society is declaring victory in a campaign to get Trader Joe's to stop selling eggs from caged chickens.

"While Trader Joe's did stop short of adopting a total cage-free egg policy, the company proved to us that it is serious about improving the lives of laying hens," said The HSUS's Pacelle. "We understand that sometimes change happens a step at a time, and we applaud Trader Joe's for making this strong move."

Interesting tidbit about the huge volume of products that Trader Joe's moves: "Presently, the company sells more than 100 million Trader Joe's brand battery cage eggs per year, meaning that the company's new policy could benefit an estimated 380,000 birds."

there is no local TJs where I moved to last spring. I'm still suffering from withdrawal.

The word is that they won't put a franchise locally to compete with the "wild oats" store. Not that there would be any competition. I can't afford to shop at wild oats.

Makes Fresh Fields/Whole Foods look like a bargain outlet.

I go in there every so often when they are having brutal sales...usually midweek, in the morning. Every so often I can find some stuff that is not overpriced, but bargains? Naaah....!!!

Whole Foods carries some of the same or comparable items at a MUCH higher price. I have a Whole Foods in town, and Trader Joe's is 15 miles away- I wish it were the reverse!

I shop there when I'm in LA or in Santa Fe

Likes: Some of the best frozen fish around, and dairy products not easily available anywhere else close by, e.g., fat-free Greek yogurt and Cabot 75% Light bulk cheddar (rare on the West Coast). Also lots of nifty house-brand stuff like tandoori naan.

Dislikes: Apart from the self-absorbed shopper aisle blockage issue, my biggest gripe is that almost all the produce is shrink-wrapped, including silly things like individual cucumbers in their own personal condoms. The Southeast Portland store (not the one in my neighborhood) has a real produce and dried herb store right next door, making two-stop shopping a breeze. If I'm not driving and don't feel like going across town, I have to either deal with their pre-packaged quantities and packaging waste for the produce items I need most, or I need to make a separate trip (either to the Asian market close to my house or to the mega-corp-mart) for fruits and veggies.
Also, their coffee options aren't that great, so I tend to get that elsewhere, but that's easy since great coffee in Portland abounds.

About packaged produce. Also their organic bananas come gassed, so they go from ripe looking --> brown but still hard in 30 hours.

I love their prices for meats, but dislike the packaging and inability to buy as much or as little as I need.

Overall, it's a nice alternative to Whole Foods, but the pre-packaging kills me.