here’s a jolly seafaring fellow who goes by many aliases: Trader Joe, Trader Jacques, Trader Ming, Trader Giotto. But despite these different international guises, he’s the same lovable guy underneath Trader Joe didn’t start out with a benign multiple-personality syndrome. His appealing chain of grocery stores with the California cachet began in 1958, as a convenience store. It was called Pronto Markets, located in Pasadena, CA.

Owner Joe Coulombe wanted to distinguish Pronto from his competition, 7-11. He astutely took note of the fact that Americans had returned from World War II with broader cultural horizons, and hence a new openness to buying more diverse, even exotic, products. The postwar prosperity had put more dollars in people’s pockets, making them more willing to spend on specialty items.

Coulombe had also noted the “tiki craze,” which began in California in the 1930s; it was a fascination with Hawaii and the South Pacific that influenced the decor of homes and restaurants. One chain of tiki-themed restaurants was called Trader Vic’s (it claimed credit for inventing the mai tai cocktail). In 1967, riffing on this trend, Coulombe gave his business a funky facelift. He reinvented Pronto Markets as Trader Joe’s, moving his main store to Arroyo Parkway (where it still stands), and outfitting his employees in Hawaiian shirts. He expanded the seafaring theme, calling employees the “crew” and offering interesting products culled from all over the globe.

By the 1970s, food co-ops were coming into vogue, and the Trader Joe’s business model shared the same democratic, health-food, fairprice ethos. The stores used to cut hunks of cheese for customers, squeeze fresh orange juice, and sell nuts from barrels by the pound. The company’s first private label product, launched in 1972, was granola. That soon expanded into other private label lines. In 1977, apple juice became the company’s first certifiedorganic private label product. In 1979, Coulombe sold the store to Theo Albrecht, a German entrepreneur, who left the company to his heirs in 2010. Today, it’s officially part of the ALDI Nord chain of supermarkets. While these days it feels like the TJ brand has been around forever, it wasn’t until 1993 that Trader Joe’s ventured out of California, opening its first branch in Phoenix, Arizona. As the years passed, Trader Joe’s slowly expanded all over the United States.

The Manhattan store didn’t open until 2006. (The first customer bought an energy bar and walked out.) “Trader Joe’s… almost [has] a cult [following],” says Shelley Atlas Serber of West Hempstead. Shelley, who has a day job as the creative director for a healthcare company, had noticed the way recipe and food groups were mushrooming on Facebook. She was inspired to start a Facebook group called “Kosher Trader Joe’s” four years ago. “For many Jews out of town, Trader Joe’s is the only place they can get kosher meat and other products,” she says. “There are people in the group who post about how they made an entire Shabbos using Trader Joe’s products.” On her page, she asks that members not to question the reliability of any particular hechsher, since members come from all walks of Jewish life. (This avoids long and potentially acrimonious discussions about standards of kashrus.) “Trader Joe’s gets products from all over the world, so it’s likely you’ll see hechsherim you’ve never heard of before,” she points out. “You have to do your homework. I’m from Australia, so when I see an Australian hechsher, I recognize it, but many other people wouldn’t.” She adds that a few frum companies, whose names she isn’t at liberty to disclose, have begun manufacturing for Trader Joe’s.

How did Trader Joe’s become so kosher friendly?

Phyllis Koegel, marketing director at the OU, explains, “Supermarkets have limited shelf space. So when they’re looking for a category, they look for products that will appeal to the broadest possible market,” she says. “They like to see as many certifications as possible — kosher, organic, vegan, gluten-free, etc. When considering a new product, Trader Joe’s specifically asks vendors which certifications they have. They also manufacture many of their own private label products, and [they] do so with consumer preferences in mind.” Shelley notes that successful groceries do well to pay attention to the kosher market. With 31,000 members from around the world, her Facebook group gives her the power to influence corporate decisions. “We’re the largest kosher store group [on Facebook],” she says. “After us, Costco and Target have the next largest groups.”

We decided to ask Trader Joe’s directly how it is that they seem to cater to the kosher demographic.

According to Kenya Friend Daniel from the public relations department, however, Trader Joe’s doesn’t seek out kosher certifications per se. “We do not always set out to find only kosher certified products,” she said. “Many of our vendors just happen to be kosher certified, so it is an added bonus, because we listen to customer feedback. We do know from our customers that there is a demand for kosher-certified products.” She added that for certain products — typical Jewish foods like challah and babka — they will specifically look for kosher certification.

Check It Out 

There isn’t a Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood, but I know all about it from my mother, who frequents the Philadelphia branch and used to “import” the much-coveted Trader Joe’s chocolate chips to me in Brooklyn. (When those chocolate chips became dairy, fans were so upset that they organized a petition that garnered 5,700 signatures.) But I was hankering to have the Trader Joe’s experience myself, so I located the closest store (downtown Brooklyn) and hopped on a train. The downtown TJ’s, which is in the basement of a chic mini-shopping mall, is smaller than many of its sister stores in out-of-town locations. Nevertheless, despite its subterranean location, walking in still feels like a breath of fresh air — the first thing to greet the eyes is a colorful array of plants and flowers for sale, at terrific prices. (Orchid plants for $10 and $12! A bunch of sunflowers or mums for $4!) A small bouquet went into my cart posthaste, since I had plans to visit a friend in the hospital. Then there was the equally colorful produce section, also reasonably priced, next to an aisle of tempting roasted nuts and dried fruit. Even the shoppers were a colorful bunch, a rainbow coalition of all ages and races, some in arty downtown-Brooklyn attire.

After the fruits and veggies, there was a noticeable switch, calorically speaking. Trader Joe’s offers artisanal breads (ciabatta, pain levain, baguettes, brioche), and a pareve babka reputed to be delicious. There are all manner of crackers and cookies, frozen entrees and pizza, ice creams, fair-trade-sourced coffees and teas, meats, and fish. There’s an “Everything But the Bagel” topping mix for bagels that gets high ratings, and all sorts of flours, grains, and seeds. Many products are under the TJ label, but many are not; regardless of provenance, everything seems to be packaged in funky, artsy, whimsical ways.

On the other hand, as a chalav Yisrael consumer, I was extremely frustrated that so many of the chocolates, crackers, and cookies were labeled with an OU-D or some other dairy hechsher. Like the mythical Tantalus, punished for stealing food (and other sins) by being sentenced to reach for fruits that always just exceeded his grasp, gluttonous me was unable to purchase many of the products that grabbed my eye.

Dunkers cookies! Chocolate-covered seasalt butterscotch caramels! Cowboy chocolate bark! Multigrain crackers! My taste buds were unhappy, but my waistline rejoiced. “You should have checked the OU website,” Shelley later reproved me. “A lot of those products are pareve, they’re just made on dairy equipment,” she explained. I guess you just gotta be in the know… I still managed to find some permissible indulgences; the peanut butter cups were OU-D, but the ones made with sunflower-seed butter were pareve and quite delicious. I’ve heard that the TJ pareve ice creams — vanilla and cherry chocolate-chip — are delicious, not to mention the mango sorbet, but I was too far from home to buy them without dripping all over the subway car on the way home.

The next time I go to Trader Joe’s, I plan to do my research in advance, so I’ll know exactly what I can buy. (The TJ website includes a list of kosher products, but if you’re careful about chalav Yisrael and pas Yisrael, you’ll need to research further.) But even if I left with little, I had plenty of fun simply checking it out. And hey, with all those kosher products, what’s Trader Joe’s next ethnic incarnation — Trader Yossi?

(Originally featured in FamilyTable, Issue 648)