Trader Joe's

Scientists tour the Creationist Museum

Trader Joe's is one of my favorite places to shop, with its quality products which include many choices for vegetarians and all-around low prices. I can count the number of times I've been disappointed in their food on one hand and have heard first hand that people who work there get better pay and treatment than at comparative grocery stores.
So today I'm going to research this chain to see if perhaps I am missing a dark underbelly.

Freaknomics author Stephen Dubner is my first source after Wikipedia, asking "Do You Know Who Owns Trader Joe's?"

The answer:

"A huge German discount-grocery chain best known in the U.S. for no-glamor stores often located in marginal neighborhoods....The article claims that Aldi is so good at selling cheap goods that WalMart couldn’t compete with it in Germany. How do they do it? Here’s one way: "Store-brand goods generally make up 22 percent of U.S. food sales in terms of unit volume, according to research by Nielsen Co., while in some European markets, they account for about 30 percent. At Aldi, 95 percent of the goods are the retailer’s own brands."”

I pulled up the Wall Street Journal piece he was referencing. Since I'm not a subscriber I can't read the whole article and the tidbit I could offered no new information.

Quotes from a 2004 article in BuisnessWeek:

" TJ's develops or imports many of its own products from sources it has developed over decades and sells more than 80% of them under the Trader Joe's brand or a variant thereof:.."
"After complaints from animal-rights activists about the way ducks are slaughtered, it stopped selling them. Ahi tuna is caught without nets, its dried apricots are unsulfured, its peanut butter is organic -- and has no trans fats to boot."
"One place where TJ's has never stinted is with its employees. Besides above-union wages and generous bonuses (pay for entry-level part-timers starts at $8 to $12 an hour; first-year supervisors average more than $40,000 a year), TJ's contributes an additional 15.4% of each worker's gross pay into a company-funded retirement plan.

The company got its start when Joe Coulombe was trying to figure out how to protect his three Southern California convenience stores, called Pronto Markets, from the onslaught of 7-Elevens in the 1960s. He loaded the stores up with hard-to-find gourmet items and low-priced wines, and cherry-picked food manufacturers' discontinued and overstocked merchandise, which he peddled at steep discounts. Coulombe sold the renamed Trader Joe's in 1979 to the family trust established by Theo Albrecht, and he retired in 1988."

Deciding to get more obscure results, I clicked on page twelve of the search. This led to the site "Responsible Shopper". If this site proves to be legitimate, then I am extremely happy. Even they think that Trader Joe's is pretty ok, besides the fact that child labor may have harvested the shrimp I routinely buy. This report was filed by The ACILS . Great, what's left in the bag I have now is going to taste like guilt. An easier-to-read article summarizes the situation on CNN. Though I just made a joke, what's taking place really is no laughing matter:

"The report makes clear not all shrimp imports into the United States from Thailand and Bangladesh come from problem plants.

The report names some of the most popular retailers in America, including Wal-Mart, Costco and Trader Joe's.

The center's 40-page report found sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor and unsafe working conditions are common in Thailand and Bangladesh's shrimp processing factories, and that Thai plants often use trafficked workers."

CNN places Trader Joe's fourth in another article about the healthiest places to shop. It only got a lower ranking because it lacked the variety of the other stores.

Two other things that I learned from my search are that many other people are wild about Trader Joe's and that Kroger is a horrible company. I don't know why yet, but I will when I get the energy to investigate.

This was a random and haphazard search using Google. But since so many reputable sources vouch for the company I would consider it to be one of the few legitimately good ones out there. I will look up its parent company and trust fund owner later.

Oh, and I have not looked up Greepeace's allegations about Redlisted fish being sold at their stores. Considering the chain phased out ducks when animal activists complained I have my doubts about their crimes.