--trader joe's...

[fastupslowdown]

Fairway? Something definitely bizarre going on there.

Manhattan is the land of crazy grocery stores with exclusivity pricing. As in, "I pay $12 for a dozen eggs so I don't have to shop with all those people."

I've been in Whole Foods on Union Square when it felt more like a mosh pit than a grocery. All the NYU kids (mostly women) buying yogurt, a banana and some sort of macrobiotic green stuff in a bottle.

I pulled up a corporate filing , maybe a 10k. They were advertising that their corporate strategy was higher gross margins. I guess raising prices doesn't sound nearly as sophisticated. It's clearly backfired. The management has since been ridiculed as being clueless about the business. I think these guys made every mistake under the book like opening new locations too close to old one which doesn't really add to long term sales.

[thollandpe]

----------------- it is.., in order for joe to trade some goods he had to row from point "a" to point "z" & agree the soap sucks, the humane caught tuna in olive oil is tolerable.. ronnie

The postwoman brings my tuna now (also available at whole paycheck).

www.americantuna.com

$5 a can sounds like a lot but it's a bigger can and its nit mostly liquid. Poke caught by a family business, no bycatch or any shady stuff. It's the silk-casing tubular of tuna. Seriously.

[snotrockets]

I've never seen an empty Trader Joe, but your scenes of mass hysteria are unknown to me. Could be a Berkeley thing.

[j44ke]

The postwoman brings my tuna now (also available at whole paycheck).

American Tuna

$5 a can sounds like a lot but it's a bigger can and its nit mostly liquid. Poke caught by a family business, no bycatch or any shady stuff. It's the silk-casing tubular of tuna. Seriously.

Damn this was just what I was looking for actually. Cool, thanks!

[Shinomaster]

The Old Amsterdam aged Gouda from TJ was a big hit today.

[Jaq]

I love TJ for a lot of their offerings -- their chocolates, desserts, frozen fish etc. But I wonder if someone has been noticing what I notice these days -- a lot of TJ foods do not mention the country of origin. And here is where I start of get the feeling that the reason why they do not want to put it is because is not not from the U.S. or the E.U.
Could I be wrong in this assumption?

By law (at least, by California law), country of origin (COO) must be stated, unless it's domestically produced. Ergo, if no country is listed, it's domestic. Apples, bananas, beefsteak tomatoes, mangoes, lemons, etc., are labeled, but only on the big boxes they come in. Having said that, I'm pretty sure the various cans of tuna don't carry COO labels. Most of the tuna comes from the Indian Ocean, of all places.

But COO isn't about supplier secrecy. Supplier secrecy, instead, is so that consumers aren't told what large companies are supplying certain TJ's branded products. That allows TJ's to keep prices down on its products. Sometimes you can find out, sometimes you can't; there's plenty of internet fodder on this. This is particularly true with their wine (not the 3-buck Chuck (Charles Shaw)) and spirits. There's a 14-year old single malt Speyside under the TJ's label at the moment for about 40 bucks. It was bottled by Alexander Murray and is, frankly, fan-frigging-tastic. A year ago, TJ's carried a Cabernet from Stags' Leap under its own label and sold it for about 12 bucks. The Stags' Leap was 40+. When word got around, employees bought up a lot of the stock.

TJ's prides itself on being pretty conscientious about sourcing its product, giving organic options when it can, being non-GMO, etc. If COO is an issue, you can do two things: have any employee call customer service while you're in the store, or do it yourself. You can also get any store (or you can probably do it on-line) to print up a list of vegan, gluten-free, and kosher items. While the company carries most products in most stores, different regions vary on items that are locally sourced, like beers, cheeses, certain breads, deserts, etc.

And yeah, I work at TJ's.

[davids]

TJs is really good for some of our staples (e.g. Barbara's Morning Oat Crunch costs half of what other supermarkets charge), but we could never survive on it alone. And the Brookline store is a like a mosh pit of polite James Taylor fans.

The soup always tastes better after a good pull on the timber. Keep moving, Ronnie.

"...a good pull on the timber..." So that's what the boys are calling it now!

I thought this thread was about rowing.

Oh. Never mind.

[boots2000]

Trader Joe's can be a good place to go for some staples- also they have some decent loss leaders like nuts and nut butters.
But a lot of what they sell is low quality junk food. Read the labels and look at the produce.
A lot of their meat is injected with saline and and other additives.
Much of their produce is low cost/low quality and goes bad quickly.
A border crossing inspecter hipped me to that-

[fastupslowdown]

I would never buy meat, fish or poultry from trader joe's. the one exception would be empire brand poultry products, simply because i know the standards of empire.

[davist]

I've never seen an empty Trader Joe, but your scenes of mass hysteria are unknown to me. Could be a Berkeley thing.

Since moving back East, it's a mob scene here in Phila as well. In Fremont, not so much... And we can't even get the booze, cripe, I miss the wine (not Chuck, but I liked one they called Bear's Lair)

[EightySixer]

A very bad time to wander into Trader's with the girlfriend is late morning/early afternoon-ish on a Sunday. I am absolutely happily taken but by God the yoga pants.

The chorizo is good too.

[davids]

A very bad time to wander into Trader's with the girlfriend is late morning/early afternoon-ish on a Sunday. I am absolutely happily taken but by God the yoga pants.

The chorizo is good too.

I recommend a good pull on the timber.

[golivar]

A very bad time to wander into Trader's with the girlfriend is late morning/early afternoon-ish on a Sunday. I am absolutely happily taken but by God the yoga pants.

That's about the same reason why I avoid the Whole Foods in Arlington, Va. on weekends. That and the fact that there are probably only 2 or 3 things in the entire store that I think are actually worth the price.

I've only just recently realized that TJ's is not a bad store for your everyday staples. For our other groceries we usually head to Wegman's, and for meat and produce we go to a couple of different Asian supermarkets.

[SlowPokePete]

Things I love from Trader Joe's...

Crumbled blue cheese
Handmade (doubtful) flour tortillas
Balsamic Vinigrette
Bay Blend coffee whole bean
Fruit Jellies (my daughter, who visited Turkey, calls it 'Turkish Delight')
Greeting cards
TJ's sweet chili sauce
Smokehouse almonds
Jumbo raisin medley

Things I hate...

The closest one is 30 minutes away
The place is PACKED most of the times that I go

SPP