I was hungry last night. Even though my apartment in the city is surrounded by restaurants, I was craving something different, unique and homemade. My first instinct was to go to my local supermarket located around the corner from my place but the produce they had available wasn’t in the best condition. Naturally my next instinct was to go to the Trader Joe’s that had opened a block away a few months earlier.

 

A much larger store than my neighborhood market, I have always perceived Trader Joe’s as having high quality food at a generally low price. So I have to admit I was pretty baffled when I could not find a single item I needed in the store. There were piles of organic apples, oranges and bananas but no fresh vegetables around. There seemed to be pre-packaged items across the shelves but many of them did not carry the items I was looking for and not in very large quantities. My demands were simple, I needed one yellow and one green zucchini and a single chicken breast, that was it. After going through the store four times I eventually gave up and ended up back at my local supermarket.

 

It seems as if Trader Joe’s has gone out of its way to specialize in a couple of general produce items but does not have any desire to go further than that. This means that while the store may work on a stylistic level, it lacks function. A shopper can go in and get a couple of organic oranges and a pre-packaged item but when it comes to utilizing the store for real meals there is something lacking.

 

Trader Joe’s should make an effort to provide common produce items such as eggplant, zucchini and other products used by consumers on a daily basis. This would not involve much effort on the part of the company and would expand its produce section, giving shoppers yet another reason to shop and stay at Trader Joe’s.