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Trader Joes: Stores
built 203 days ago
Trader Joe's is named for its founder, Joe Coulombe. The chain began in 1958 as a Greater Los Angeles area chain of "Pronto Market" convenience stores. The original Pronto Markets were similar to 7-Eleven stores, so similar that Coulombe felt that the competition with 7-Eleven would be fatal.[4] He is said to have envisioned the Trader Joe South Seas motif while on vacation in the Caribbean.[5] He had noticed that Americans were traveling more and returning home with tastes for food and wine they had trouble satisfying in supermarkets of the time. The first store named "Trader Joe's" opened in Pasadena, California in 1966. This store, on Arroyo Parkway, is still in operation. In response to strong competition from 7-Eleven, the chain differentiated its stores' offerings and doubled the floor space in 1967.
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In April of 2003 NFI was awarded Trader Joe’s Midwest Distribution business due to process improvements they identified in their bid. This marks the first multi-temperature grocery operation for NFI. The operations startup moved forward at an accelerated pace. Trader Joe’s, a top-end grocery chain, was previously supplying its Midwest stores from Massachusetts and needed a regional solution to ensure stores were getting the freshest quality products. The distribution operations startup began in May of 2003. By mid-July NFI was handling distribution of dry product and in October began distributing refrigerated product.
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Trader Joe rocks! The guy who started it sold it to the same German brothers that own Aldi. He is now on the board of Cost Plus - another rockin store. They removed email because they would have had to add employees to handle the volume of email and they are $$$ oriented- they have 800 numbers to each store to answer questions.Now if they will only move into upstate New York…
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The New York City Trader Joe's is the first to offer a delivery service for the grocery and wine stores. Unlike Peapod (an online grocery delivery service) you have to visit the store, pay for your groceries and a $4.95 delivery charge, and wait up to two hours for your groceries to arrive. The delivery area ranges from 7th Avenue to 1st Avenue, and from 8th Street to 23rd Street.
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Trader Joe's inspires fierce loyalty. They have great in-store customer service and ring the bell loudly when they have to add more people to the registers. Trader Joe's is a niche small market. In other words, don't expect to find everything on your shopping list like barbecue sauce. Trader Joe's specializes in organic or minimally processed foods. Because of this, there are some great items to get here, such as macadamia nuts at reasonable prices, low-carb cereal, as well as non-nitrate deli meats and hot dogs.
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Trader Joe’s was founded by Joe Coulombe. He was running a number of Pronto Markets when 7-Eleven started to monopolize the market. He had the idea for a grocery store with more exotic offerings but at decent prices. It took off (obviously) and he started converting all of his Prontos into Trader Joe’s.
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