Despite product recalls, questionable business practices, reports of workplace misconduct, and greenwashing, Trader Joe’s remains one of America’s favorite supermarkets. Clint Rainey’s dive into the company, the first in a three–part series exploring its brand identity and business practices, might be surprising to some people—its most loyal shoppers in particular. But if you’ve stopped to think at all about Trader Joe’s as a business over the years, it’s not hard to see that something shady lurks beneath the shelves of its inexpensive and effectively branded products.
The average Trader Joe’s shopper is a white married college graduate between 25 and 44 who earns $80,000 a year, “over-indexes” on social media use, and considers themselves to be early adopters of new trends. Arguably the key to Trader Joe’s success—and certainly its most envied by peers—is that the company has been so adept at encouraging these loyal fans to be its chief evangelizers and de facto marketing team.
The chain is privately owned and doesn’t release revenue data. But according to Progressive Grocer’s list of top North American grocery retailers, Trader Joe’s generates an estimated $17 billion in annual sales from 560 stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia—with a minimal digital footprint and no rewards programs of any kind. Its official marketing is all but nonexistent: little more than the Fearless Flyer newsletter, a popular podcast called Inside Trader Joe’s, and a modest social media presence, which consists of an Instagram with 3.2 million followers plus a LinkedIn company page and a YouTube channel that mostly cross-posts the podcast.
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