Trader Joe’s Didn’t Try to Be the Biggest. It Became the Most Beloved
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, before it became a national name, Trader Joe’s was just a small Los Angeles shop with a big idea. Founded by Joe Coulombe, the store broke every rule of traditional supermarket chains. Instead of trying to compete with the largest grocery stores in America on size, it won on personality, price, and products that customers couldn’t find anywhere else. Decades later, Trader Joe’s has grown into one of the biggest grocery success stories in the United States, rivaling major supermarket chains while keeping its neighborhood feel. Our own Greg Hengler shares how a single store sparked a grocery revolution.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:14.0 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:17.1 | Our next story is about a grocery store founded in Los Angeles in 1967 and now has |
| 0:23.8 | hundreds of locations covering 42 states. Here's Greg Hengler with the story. |
| 0:35.6 | Trader Joe's, the surfy laid-back grocery store chain with a cult-like following, known for its cheap prices and floral print-clad staff, has been a household name for years. |
| 0:50.3 | When you break it down to square footage, Trader Joe's is actually selling more than double its competitors like grocery store chain Whole Foods. |
| 1:00.1 | And when it comes to the traditional, we have everything in more mega grocery store chains. |
| 1:06.3 | The small Trader Joe's locations do more than simply offer competition, they outwork and outsell |
| 1:14.0 | these goliaths of grocery. |
| 1:16.4 | The question is, how? |
| 1:20.7 | After all, Trader Joe's focuses on a unique selection of products under their private label |
| 1:26.4 | rather than a large amount to them. |
| 1:29.2 | They don't sell the same old things we normally see. |
| 1:32.2 | No lays, no Heinz, no General Mills, etc. |
| 1:37.0 | And whereas a traditional grocery store stocks upwards of 40,000 units, Trader Joe's runs |
| 1:43.5 | around a mere 4,000. In order to make this clear, |
| 1:48.1 | I went to my local Kroger and did some aisle counting and compared it with Trader Joe's |
| 1:52.8 | scale-down approach to shopping. Kroger stocks 285 varieties of cookies. Trader Joe's 154. Kroger, 144 pasta sauces, T.J's, 14. Kroger's 75 iced |
| 2:08.6 | teas, TJs, nine. Kroger stocks, 275 cereals, TJs 39. Kroger 44 olive oils. |
| 2:18.0 | T.J.'s 14. |
| 2:19.9 | And Kroger stocks 40 toothpastes. |
| 2:23.3 | T.J.'s just four. |
... |
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