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UD doesn’t like Trader Joe’s.

Mr UD loves it — as do many of their friends — and since he does the food shopping, we eat a lot of Joe’s food.

A longish article in Fortune tries to explain the market’s appeal.

Who’s a fan of Trader Joe’s? Young Hollywood types like Jessica Alba are regularly photographed brandishing Trader Joe’s shopping bags — but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor reportedly is a fan too. “What’s not to like?” says Costco (COST, Fortune 500) co-founder and CEO Jim Sinegal. “They’re very good retailers, and we admire them a lot.” Visit a Trader Joe’s early in the day, and there are senior citizens on fixed incomes shopping for bargains; on weekends and evenings a well-heeled crowd takes over. Kevin Kelley, whose consulting firm Shook Kelley has researched Trader Joe’s for its competitors, jokes that the typical shopper is the “Volvo-driving professor who could be CEO of a Fortune 100 company if he could get over his capitalist angst.”

But Mr UD hates Volvos.

Margaret Soltan, August 23, 2010 6:20AM
Posted in: professors

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11 Responses to “UD doesn’t like Trader Joe’s.”

  1. theprofessor Says:

    Mr. UD is a discerning man.

    I have been on the receiving end of many gushy lectures about the wonders of Volvos. Usually while driving them to the garage to pick up their wondercars after the fourth repair of the year.

  2. MattF Says:

    I admit to being a TJ’s fan. A box of tasty cereal for (only!) $3, one banana for (only!) $.19, -and- the only place in town where you can buy a bar of Valhrona dark chocolate (the price is irrelevant). What’s not to like?

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    tp: Mr UD also thinks they’re ugly. Even the more recent models, which seem to me not particularly ugly.

  4. Bill Gleason Says:

    Three words

    Three Buck Chuck

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    I hear you, MattF. But — fruit?? Good produce??? Good bread????

  6. MattF Says:

    True, I don’t generally buy their fruits or meats (except for the occasional kosher chicken). Their high-low strategy (either cheap-and-tasty or expensive-and-unique) doesn’t work for some things. They are also notorious for unexplained disappearances– e.g., why did the frozen brown rice vanish for six months, and then suddenly reappear? Still, TJ’s helps me avoid always-expensive Whole Foods, and there’s something to be said for that.

  7. Ben Brumfield Says:

    There being no Trader Joe’s in Texas, shopping at a TJ is one of the things we do when we visit the coasts. If we fly, we limit ourselves to cases of fruit leathers, but when we’re on a road trip we pack coolers.

  8. Crimson05er Says:

    (sigh) I know I’m out of my element. We small town, squarish-shaped state, Deep South Americans don’t get the pleasure of a Trader Joe’s except when we visit the big city. No one ever writes glamorous articles about Winn Dixies.

  9. Tobe Says:

    Nuts! Trader Joe’s has the best selection of nuts and at a reasonable price.

  10. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Tobe: Agreed.

  11. ricki Says:

    I have never been in a Trader Joe’s, living as I do in a mostly-dry state in “flyover land.” I suspect the cachet is partly a hipness, “it’s not ‘everywhere'” sort of thing.

    Friends in California tell me it’s great if you want the pre-prepared food, not quite so much if you tend to be a from-scratch cook.

    I dunno. I shop at Kroger’s when I have time to get down there, and I shop at the dreaded Wal-Mart the rest of the time, because it’s pretty much the only choice that doesn’t involve a half-hour drive both ways.

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