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January 28, 2008

Trader Joe's: Can emails bring grocery chain to R.I.?

MCT
Trader Joe's grocery store in Albuquerque, N.M.

This email is spreading around Rhode Island like those jokes that circulate among friends:

This is the address for the Trader Joe's location request form. My mother and her friends did it in pa and they got a store! Forward this to your other friends who might enjoy a local Trader Joe's store.

http://www.traderjoes.com/location_requests_form.aspx

Never heard of it? Wikipedia notes that "The October 2006 issue of Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe's the second-best supermarket chain in the nation, after Wegmans." More:

Trader Joe's describes itself as "your unique grocery store". Products sold include gourmet foods, organic foods, vegetarian food, unusual frozen foods, imported foods, domestic and imported wine, "alternative" food items, and basics like bread, cereal, eggs, dairy, coffee and produce. Non-food items include personal hygiene products, household cleaners, vitamins, pet food, plants, and flowers. Many of the company's products are considered environmentally friendly.

Trader Joe's sells many items from any of several of its own private labels. Such labels are quirkily named by the ethnicity of the food in question, such as Trader Jose's (Mexican food), Trader Ming's (Chinese food), Baker Josef's (bagels), Trader Giotto's (Italian food), Trader Joe-San (Japanese food), Trader Johann's (lip balm), and Trader Darwin's (vitamins). By selling almost all of its products under its own label, Trader Joe's "skips the middle man" and buys directly from both local and international small time vendors.

There are nearly 300 Trader Joe's, in 23 states and Washington, D.C.; there are 16 in Massachusetts, none in Rhode Island.

For more information, you might check out the Trader Joe's fan site, and reviews of the three Boston locations at Yelp ("Real people. Real reviews.).

All three come in at 4.5 out of 5 stars based on dozens of reviews. One reviewer described it as "Whole Foods but cheaper."

Browse the reviews:

-- Cambridge
-- Back Bay
-- Brookline

Each store is different -- from the reviews, it's apparent the the Back Bay location has lots of heat-and-eat prepared foods, while the Brookline store lacks parking. They're generally rather smaller than other chain supermarkets' stores -- more the size of the original Whole Foods on Waterman Street at Butler Avenue, rather than the newer ones on North Main Street (in what used to be University Heights) and at Garden City in Cranston. The Cambridge Trader Joe's is the largest.

If you want Trader Joe's to be one of your shopping choices here, you might follow the link to the form in the email I quote above.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:30 PM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: pam on January 29, 2008 12:10 AM

Posted by: trudy on January 29, 2008 2:35 AM

Posted by: family Johnson on February 23, 2008 1:28 PM