June 26, 2007
Careful What You Stick In Your Mouth
Put down the hamburger: Trader Joe's is recalling some ground beef and onions. Generally we love Joe's food, but listeria monocytogenes? Ick! In fairness to TJ's, all supermarkets go through recalls now and then, and it could be far worse -- at the Safeway in the Mission, we've seen them changing ceiling tiles above the uncovered produce.
Frequent TJ shoppers can get alerts whenever the company issues a recall, but it's slightly hard to set up. The TJ website itself doesn't offer any easy way to sign up for alerts, so you have to use ChangeNotes to create an alert for http://www.traderjoes.com/action_issues.asp -- any time that info is added or deleted from the page, you'll get an email.
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I used to be a big fan of TJ's too. That was before I learned they have the same owner as Aldi's which is Europe's answer to Wal*mart.
TJ's is owned by Theo Albrecht who is the 22nd richest man in the world.
There was an American named Joe (Coulombe), but he's been globalized.
Why, that's an outrage! If I'm going to shop at an upper-crust food store, I want the owner to be 10th or above in global richness! I had no idea TJ's owner was so bourgeois. Twenty-second? Why, he might as well be a hobo.
As for the last line of the above comment, I suspect that it's the opening of a dirty limerick.
So the complaint is that the owner is rich and European? Where are people supposed to shop then, at the corner store? I'm not giving up my two buck Chuck. No way, no how.
I haven't been to Trader Joe's in about a year; not out of protest, just out of its inconveniance for me. But I'm wondering, do they still package their vegetables in plastic, paper AND saran wrap? That always seemed ridiculously un-green for a store that at least APPEARS to care about such things...
TJ's locations are INCREDIBLY inconvenient. I joined CityCarShare exclusively so that I could drive to TJ's on Geary -- there's no good way to get to either store other than by car. That's mostly Muni's fault.
The packaging does seem a bit materially wasteful. But it's hard to check the quality of produce unless it's in a transparent container.
Why can't they just have stuff sitting in bins unwrapped, like at other grocery stores? (Preferably not below where they are changing ceiling tiles.)
I think TJ's has opted for the convenience of having pre-packaged produce -- it's a faster assembly line if cashiers don't have to weigh things and check for the codes on the little stickers.