40 Facts Only Trader Joe's Superfans Will Know

Trader Joe's was founded in 1967 and the first store was located in Pasadena, California. You'll be happy to know it's still there today.

Joe Coulombe founded the grocery store chain with the sole purpose of delivering high quality and interesting foods at low budget prices. Joe's vision was to create a laid-back atmosphere "for overeducated and underpaid people, for all the classical musicians, museum curators, journalists," he told The Los Angeles Times in 2014. The founder passed away in 2020 at the age of 89.

According to the store's website, the first store was called Pronto Markets and was a convenience store. After running a chain of Pronto Markets for 10 years, Joe switched up the business model, and with it, the name.

If you've shopped at TJ's before, you may or may not have noticed the nautical theme. This is because Joe was reading White Shadows in the South Seas at the time and was inspired to make the people at the store like "traders on the high seas."

Paired with that nautical theme is the bright tropical Hawaiian shirts worn by the employees. "We wear Hawaiian shirts because we're traders on the culinary seas, searching the world over for cool items to bring home to our customers," the store's website explains.

Although Joe stayed on as chief executive officer until 1988, the founder sold his stake in Trader Joe's in 1979 to German grocery retailer, Theo Albrecht. The company remains in the Albrecht family ownership to this day.

It's just another element pulled from Joe's nautical inspiration, but it's also incredibly useful. Instead of using a PA system, the store uses the bell and a special code for various requests.

One thing that the founder engrained into the company's ethos was delivering high-quality ingredients, which means non-GMO and organic produce.

You won't find any $2 bundles at your local Trader Joe's. The store strictly sells all bananas individually and for no more than 19 cents.

As the story goes, Trader Joe's was trying to figure out how to price bananas (by the bundle or individually) when a Sun City employee noticed an old woman inspecting the fruit and ultimately putting it back. When he asked her why, she told him, "Sonny, I may not live to that fourth banana." According to Dan Bane, CEO and chairman at Trader Joe's, the company "decided the next day that we were going to sell individual bananas, and they've been 19 cents ever since," he said on the Trader Joe's podcast.

Almost everything you pick up off of the shelf at Trader Joe's is made under the Trader Joe's private label—from coffee creamer to coconut oil. Operating this way helps keep the shelf price down. In 1977, the company created sub brands for specialty food items.

The company experimented with the idea of launching its own product line of granola—and no one's looked back since.

How different are those Trader Joe's chips from your favorite brand name chip? Not very. It turns out, some of the manufactures of Trader Joe's products are brand name companies. The grocer is able to deliver goods for less by simply cutting out the middle man and buying directly from manufacturers and growers, rather than the distributor.

Any tried and true Trader Joe's shopper can tell you that the shopping experience is unparalleled to any other store. But the reason for that? Smaller inventory. While the average supermarket keeps up to 50,000 items on the shelf, Trader Joe's only keeps 4,000 in stock.

Wonder if that salsa is too spicy? If that dark chocolate is too bitter? Well, with the Trader Joe's "Try Anything" policy, you can test any product before purchasing it to make sure it's exactly what you want.

There's no shortage of selection in the Trader Joe's frozen food aisle—from Spicy Orange Chicken to Gone Bananas to frozen pizzas galore. This section alone has made the grocer a standout among its competitors. We even had the pleasure of testing every TJ's frozen meal and ranking them for you. You're welcome!