Inside Trader Joe's

When the weather's warm (okay, scorching hot), and the last thing you want to do is heat up your kitchen, turning up the heat on your grill is a great way to get dinner on the table. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're going outside for some grilling tips from some of our grill-grate gurus. In place of the usual suspects, we're firing up some unexpected burgers and well-seasoned lamb. Th...

It's a known known that people across the land love a good contest. It's also a known known that Trader Joe's Crew Members across the country know the very best ways to use Trader Joe's products. The known unknown in the 2025 Store Recipe Contest scenario… which store would come up with the very best recipe, crafted using a mere five Trader Joe's products? That, dear podcast listeners, is revealed...

Welcome to another episode of the Trader Joe's Wine Club, brought to you by Inside Trader Joe's. In this sip-sized segment, we're going all-in on super sippers for summertime soirees, with bottles you may have missed in our wine section; wines that are excellent for afternoon barbecues, evenings with friends, and weekends relaxing on a patio chair. Listen in for a quick introduction to our favorit...

Here comes summer! And Trader Joe's is READY. There's nothing summerier than watermelon, and we are wading in 'em – the yellow variety, and the marshmallow variety. Have a listen, and this will make sense. A skincare set to give you a little summertime glow-up? Yes, please. A new Mini Sheet Cake? OMS – again, listen and ye shall understand. We have buns a-plenty, dogs for dressing, and did we ment...

We get a lot of questions at Trader Joe's. And we really love answering them. Especially when it means we get to eat ice cream. For research. To all those who ask what makes Trader Joe's ice cream so special, we say, all the things! It starts with high quality ingredients, and a dedication to making ice cream that over-delivers on all of your expectations – it's rich, it's creamy, it's incredibly...

Imagine a small town in western Italy, home to a family-owned company that got its start canning fresh fruits and veggies more than 80 years ago. Now imagine that company in 2025, still owned by the same family, and still preserving the flavors of the local produce – not just in canned fruits and veggies, but in supremely satisfying sauces, too. And now imagine you're listening to a podcast… oh, w...

In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're taking you inside our customers' shopping carts to find out what keeps them coming back to Trader Joe's again and again. For this edition of our Customer Cart Conversations, we go to Trader Joe's number 691 in Chicago's iconic Lincoln Park neighborhood. Captain Ken, a Chicago native – who may or may not have a favorite Chicago baseball team – gets up c...

Welcome to another episode of the Trader Joe's Wine Club, brought to you by Inside Trader Joe's. This sip-sized segment has us blushing a bit. Because, of course, we're talking about Rosé. Contrary to the opinions of some, Rosé is a serious wine, and we sat down for a serious conversation about three of our favorite Rosé options in the wine section at your neighborhood Trader Joe's. While all thre...

There are certain foods that are synonymous with their place names. Parmigianno Reggiano. Kalamata Olives. And the focus of this episode, Balsamic Vinegar of Modena. A world-renowned product with a long and fascinating history, Balsamic Vinegar of Modena is produced exclusively in the Modena region of Italy. In this episode we sit down (and do a bunch of walking!) with one of Modena's largest and...

We get a lot of questions at Trader Joe's. And we see things in the news that make us ask questions, too. Recently, we've seen a bunch of stories about so-called "Retail Media." So what the heck is Retail Media, and does Trader Joe's do it? In a nutshell, Retail Media is all about using screens and media and technology in retail stores, ostensibly to replace humans. That doesn't make sense to us –...

It's nearly spring. And at Trader Joe's, that means new products popping up like flower buds after an early thaw. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're getting up close and personal with a baker's dozen of our favorite new (and returning) things for spring. Looking for Easter candy and treats? You'll find them here, and you'll be impressed not only with how they look, but how they taste. A...

Welcome to another episode of the Trader Joe's Wine Club, brought to you by Inside Trader Joe's. In this sip-sized segment, we're going grass-roots – or at the very least, grass-noted – with a conversation about New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. More specifically, we're highlighting Raorao Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region, an area on the South Island renowned for this varietal (among others)...

We often talk about traveling the world to find the most delicious products we can offer, so we can bring them to our customers at a great value. Decades ago, when we began our search for truly excellent frozen pizza, it occurred to us that maybe the best place to go was the birthplace of the stuff… Italy. Turns out we were right, and our frozen pizzas became the stuff of lore – they're just that...

The votes are in, and the time has come to reveal the winners of the 16 th Annual Trader Joe's Customer Choice Awards! Sixteen years of celebrating our customers' favorite products, as voted by you, our customers. It's just as exciting to us this year as it was in year one. This year, we've added a New category. That's right, a New category – Favorite New Product! There are so many possibilities…...

As listeners of this podcast know, the Trader Joe's mothership is located in Monrovia, CA. Monrovia is really close to one of the wildfires that's devastated Southern California recently. We have a lot of Crew Members and customers who've been impacted by these fires, and we wanted to take a minute to send our best wishes to them and everyone who's dealing with the aftermath of these events. We re...

We're back with another episode of the Trader Joe's Wine Club, brought to you by Inside Trader Joe's. In this seasonally inspired sip-sized segment, we're focusing on those most festive wines, the sparklers. Focusing in even further, we're celebrating Champagne, perhaps the greatest gift France has ever given the wider world (we love you, Baguettes and Brie, but Champagne… it's so festive and deli...

Every year, just as most of our holiday decorations are packed away and the world is focused on winter's snowscapes and the coming thaw of spring, the product development teams at Trader Joe's are laser-focused on the holidays, nearly a full year in the future. Consider this episode of Inside Trader Joe's a bit of back-to-the-future, or at least back-to-the-present, where we take you inside the Ho...

The Holiday Season is truly the most festive time of year at your neighborhood Trader Joe's, with hundreds of celebration-worthy products making appearances on our shelves for a limited time. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're making a list, checking it twice (thrice, even!), and delivering it right to you. English Toffee Ice Cream AND a British Shortbread Collection? Right-o! Lemon Pee...

Welcome to the premiere episode of the Trader Joe's Wine Club, brought to you by Inside Trader Joe's. There's no membership fee and no shipping charges – and that's because this isn't an actual Wine Club. In these occasional, sippable episodes of Inside Trader Joe's (there we go being all figurative again – you can't really sip this episode), we'll uncork some information about some of our favorit...

Trader Joe's has been a destination for winning wine finds since our earliest days, and more than 57 years into our journey, our stores remain a source of tremendous values on wines from the world's best growing regions. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we sit down with four folks from our wine team who are doing the work, day after day, to find those wines and get them to our shelves. Gren...

We all know that every neighborhood is unique. And because Trader Joe's is a national chain of neighborhood grocery stores, every Trader Joe's is as unique as the neighborhood of which it is a part. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're taking you inside two distinctive neighborhood Trader Joe's stores, that just so happen to be in the same neighborhood. (Right? It's amazing what a few blo...

We get a lot of questions at Trader Joe's. One of those we hear the most is, "Hey, when are you opening a store in my neighborhood?" And "How do you decide where to put a Trader Joe's?" – that comes up a lot, too. As you can imagine, like Trader Joe's stores themselves, choosing store locations isnot a one-size-fits-all approach. Truth is, we'd like to be in thousands of neighborhoods all across t...

In this episode of Inside Trader Joe's, we're taking you inside our customers' shopping carts to find out what keeps them coming back to Trader Joe's again and again. For this inaugural iteration of our Customer Cart Conversations, we go to Trader Joe's number 122 in Studio City, California, where our store Captain Jay Jay gets up close and personal with the contents of customers' carts, with ques...

It's September at Trader Joe's. That, of course, means the Pumpkin-palooza is underway. You'll find more than 70 pumpkin-forward products on our shelves this season – including new entries like Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate and the much-anticipated Pumpkin Mini Sheet Cake. And despite the plethora of pumpkin, this season is also about so much more. Like Apple (Shortbread Cookies), Map...

When we think about back-to-school, we immediately think of chocolate and mustard. (Doesn't everyone?) Specifically, we think of Belgian chocolate and Dijon Mustard. Just in time for back-to-school shopping – as well as classes like History, Geography, Chemistry, and Culinary Arts – this episode of Inside Trader Joe's takes you to the source of these longtime favorites. Travel along with us as we...