Trader Joe’s is an eclectic grocery store chain across the United States (and perhaps in a few other countries too since it is was acquired by Theo Albrecht, a German entrepreneur, in 1979) which sells products only under its own brand names. While most products are branded as “Trader Joe’s,” many of its ethnic foods are branded to represent the culture from where such foods may have originated. Thus, for example, Chinese foods are branded “Trader Ming’s,” Mexican foods as “Trader Jośe” and Italian foods as “Trader Giotto’s.”
A Change.org petition has called out the branding of such ethnic foods as “racist,” saying “that belies a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes.” “The Trader Joe’s branding is racist” the petitioners argue “because it exoticizes other cultures – it presents ‘Joe’ as the default “normal” and the other characters falling outside of it — they are either ‘Arabian Joe,‘ ‘Trader José’ or ‘Trader Joe San.” The petition has attracted so much attention that it even earned editorial space in the Wall Street Journal (July 23, 2020).
I condemn discrimination of any kind but in this instance, I wonder if such labeling of ethnic foods is discriminatory. Trader Joe’s have designed their stores to be a playful place to shop. All store personnel are dressed in Hawaiian shirts, communicate in a lighthearted manner, and the environment is very casual and informal. To my mind, branding of ethnic foods the way they have been branded is just an extension of their playfulness and not intended to be exotic or racist or perpetuation of any stereotypes. I personally feel this petition lacks merit. But surprisingly, the chain, in response to the petition stated that they “have been in the process of updating older labels and replacing any variations with the name Trader Joe’s, and we will continue to do so until we complete this important work.” I, for one, will definitely find the environment at Trader Joe’s less informal once the change is implemented.