This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream. Use the link in the description to watch thousands
of documentaries and, at no extra cost, exclusive and ad-free videos from your favorite creators
on Nebula. It’s 5 o’clock. You just finished a shift in your small Winsconsin
dairy town. You’re on an evening stroll in New York. Dinner is calling in a St. Louis suburb. Then, you step into the grocery store and
suddenly you’re transported somewhere entirely different: Here the parking lots are never big enough,
the lines, always long, and picking Pita chips somehow feels adventurous. Here you’re sophisticated - you appreciate
the difference between mezzelune and non-mezzelune ravioli. What is this strange, alternate universe? And why is everyone so scandalously friendly? You’ve just entered the 15,000 square-foot
Californian Embassy. Or, more specifically, your neighborhood Trader
Joe’s. Like its motherland, the nation of California,
Trader Joe’s does everything a bit differently. It holds no sales, offers no coupons, has
no loyalty program, no self-checkout, almost no advertising, no online ordering, and collects
no customer data. You’ll either find its 25-cent individually-sold
bananas quirky and charming or endlessly obnoxious. In case you’re unfamiliar, Trader Joe’s
is a popular American specialty-grocery store - meaning you’ll find things like the Veggie
Burger with Almond Butter Turmeric Slaw, produce, and snacks, but few everyday essentials like
batteries or toothpicks. For that reason, the average shopper makes
routine visits but in addition to their normal, big-box grocery store. It’s devotees appreciate its cheap and wide
variety of wine and diet or food-restriction-friendly choices, like vegan, kosher, and gluten-free
foods. It’s perhaps the only grocery store with
a cult-following, Facebook fan groups, and employees for life. Clearly it’s doing something very different. The first thing you can’t help but notice
as you enter a Trader Joe’s, is its elaborate tropical and nautical theme. It doesn’t feel like an ordinary store because
its aisles aren’t repetitive rows of similar-looking items. Rather, it’s more akin to a coherently-designed
theme park ride - unsurprising given its inspiration. Before opening the chain, its founder Joe
Coulombe had been on Disneyland’s jungle ride. The titular Joe in supermarket lore, is a
sailor on the high seas, bringing exotic foods from faraway places. Managers wear bright, casual Hawaiian shirts,
sometimes with leis, and are officially designated ‘Captains’. Assistant managers are ‘First Mates’,
and regular employees ‘Crew’. The walls, aisles, and floor are decorated
in wooden tiki patterns. Between them you’ll find Trader Joe’s
second surprise and one of the key ingredients to its success - there are almost no branded
items. Around 80% of all its products carry the Trader
Joe’s label, with a unique package design, and creative, often quirky, names. The average shopper may see only one logo
and one, consistent design from the entrance to the exit - in sharp contrast with the average
grocery store aisle, where each product independently fights for your attention. And yet, in what might surprise even the most
frequent customers, Trader Joe’s owns no factories. It does not cook, build, or create its recipes. Instead, the company approaches an existing
brand, or vice versa, and strikes a deal. Trader Joe’s gets to put its name on high-quality,
well-liked, and pre-tested foods. The manufacturer, meanwhile, gets a new source
of income from a customer who will buy regularly, in large quantities, and pay on-delivery,
rather than charging slotting fees like most grocers. Both agree to secrecy - legally obligating
one another never to admit to the arrangement. There are, however, some clever ways around
this. When the American Food and Drug Administration
recalls a product, its manufacturers often release public lists of all the stores and
labels under which it’s sold. The blog Eater has used Freedom of Information
Act requests to obtain these lists and figure out many of Trader Joe’s suppliers. While some of its products are genuinely exclusive,
many are very slight modifications, different proportions, or even exact recreations of
products available elsewhere - meaning, awkwardly, you can compare prices directly. It’s White Cheddar Macaroni, for example,
was discovered to be identical to Annie’s branded version, but, at Trader Joe’s, 50%
cheaper. Its Veggie Sticks are, except for a few ingredients,
the same as Good Health Natural Foods, despite being less than half the cost. It also sells products suspiciously similar
to Wonderful Pistachios, Naked Juice, Frito-Lay chips, and Stauffer’s animal crackers. This private-label strategy, as it’s known,
is not unique. Whole Foods has a similar brand called 365,
and Costco has its Kirkland Signature. Trader Joe’s, though, has selected products
and positioned them well enough that shoppers see its brand as Trader Joe’s. In other words, customers feel they’re shopping
at a premium retailer like Whole Foods, while getting generic-brand prices - the best of
both worlds. The downside of this strategy is that products
and relationships come and go. Because each store sells only about 4,000
unique products, compared to the average grocery store’s 40,000, it meticulously manages
inventory. Being a customer means constantly being disappointed
as your favorite items are discontinued or go out of season. This tight inventory management is also why
items sell out so frequently. Trader Joe’s purchases directly from manufacturers
and its stores have small back-rooms, meaning trucks deliver new stock every day and predicting
demand is a difficult art to perfect. The company began private-labeling back in
1972, 5 years after opening the first store in Pasadena, California, which is still open
today. Since then, the company has expanded to over
500 stores across 42 states plus D.C., with the strange omission of Hawaii, considering
its tropical theme. Despite this growth, most would say it’s
maintained that signature neighborhood-feel. Each of its 500 stores hires artists to hand-draw
its signs and reflect the local culture. The brand hearkens back to a simpler time
- one with less technology - one where staff were knowledgeable and treated customers as
friends. It feels, nostalgic - familiar, somehow, even
to those who’ve never lived in such an era. Its checkout stations have no conveyor belts,
scales, or TV screens, and, instead of a PA system, employees use a literal bell - one
ding to call extra cashiers, two for general assistance, and three to notify the manager. Free samples are handed-out liberally, and
each store makes its own merchandising decisions - catering to local tastes. Perhaps most important, though, are its staff. Trader Joe’s hires not based on skill but
personality - it exclusively recruits smart, energetic, conversationalist extroverts. Here, the customer is always right - some
have reported successfully returning dead plants or empty packaging without a receipt. The crew gladly helps carry groceries to cars
and are expressly told to drop everything when approached by a customer for any reason. They will always lead you to a product, not
just tell you which aisle it’s on. In fact, to encourage these interactions,
staff are told to stock products throughout the day, where they will be in close contact
with customers, rather than before or after the opening hours. And, because these tasks are both physically
and socially draining, workers frequently rotate between them. The job of greeting customers at the door,
the ‘helmsman’ in Joe’s parlance, is assigned for no more than 1-hour at a time. And working the register, at most, two hours. Together, all these quirks place Trader Joe’s
firmly in an unofficial family of oddly-similar, West-Coast at-heart brands with personality,
along with companies like In-N-Out and Costco. All three have a borderline cult following,
truly low prices, a reflective, top-down management style, and, treat employees not as expendable
objects but assets to be nurtured. Each appeals to the kind of customer who has
money but chooses to be frugal. Someone who enjoys the comfort of a small,
local establishment while, at the same time, feeling a bit adventurous. All were founded by charismatic figures, in
Southern California, and remain secretive about their internal workings. Trader Joe’s headquarters in Monrovia, California
is tellingly nondescript, and the company rarely accepts requests for interviews. Although Trader Joe’s founder Joe Coulombe
died in February, his legacy is undeniable. He built a place people look forward to shopping
at, a place where everyone - customers and employees are treated with respect. Some would say it’s largely a facade - that
its food may not be as healthy as one would assume, that the company is not the pinnacle
of environmentalism it would have you believe and that a national chain, by definition,
can’t be local. If one is being totally honest, the store
has a slightly snobby feel to it. But whether or not you’re a fan, you can’t
help but admire its ingenuity: building a brand that truly transcends a mere name, logo,
and ‘mission statement’. For better or worse, Trader Joe’s succeeds
because it exports California. No matter who you are, or where you are, here
everyone is friendly, everything is colorful, and life is simple. I don’t normally like talking about unreleased
videos, but one that’s been on my list for some time is another secretive, well-liked
company: Lego! I’m not sure if this video will ever see
the light of day, but, in the meantime, I really recommend watching “The Secret World
of Lego” documentary on CuriosityStream. It’s full of interesting stories, like,
for example, did you know there’s a coast in the UK where Lego pieces occasionally wash
ashore? Because you’re watching this video, I strongly
suspect you’d enjoy the technology, science, and nature documentaries on CuriosityStream
and I’d even bet you might even have a little extra free time at the moment. To help get your mind off...everything that’s
going on, right now you can get an entire year’s subscription for just $12. 12 dollars! And this includes access to our new streaming
service, Nebula, where you can watch many ad-free and even exclusive videos from your
favorite YouTubers. Use the link in the description to sign up
and you’ll get an email with access to Nebula shortly after.
erm, not sure if you read Reddit comments but your video on Nebula cut off in the middle of a sentence at 9:01. Just letting you know.