Trader Joe's is a masterclass example in branding.
The only reason anyone's surprised or outrage is that the store feels like a small, homey, good natured place full of organic this and that that's lower priced than you'd expect. That might have been true, 40 years ago. For a store that had the same name, but was a different entity entirely.
Trader Joe's now is just a giant marketing and packaging front for 70 billion dollar a year Aldi, a multinational chain. It's a corporation. None of this behavior surprises me at all.
The only reason anyone's surprised or outrage is that the store feels like a small, homey, good natured place full of organic this and that that's lower priced than you'd expect. That might have been true, 40 years ago. For a store that had the same name, but was a different entity entirely.
Trader Joe's now is just a giant marketing and packaging front for 70 billion dollar a year Aldi, a multinational chain. It's a corporation. None of this behavior surprises me at all.