Ah, spring. Birds singing, trees blooming, and products arriving, at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s. In this episode of Inside Trader Joe’s, we’re getting up close and personal with some of our favorite new and returning products for spring…
Chocolate Donut Holes? OMD yes. Orange Wine? We spend some time with our resident wine expert to talk about wine of many colors. We’ll take a peek at – and a taste of – Piquant Popcorn. Can we talk about the Cinnamon Twist Danish Pastry? Yes we can, and yes we do.
There’s always something new, delicious, and exciting at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s – this episode is loaded with all of these. Have a listen, then make your own springtime list and pay a visit to your neighborhood store…
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All episodes of the Inside Trader Joe’s podcast are available for download now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Download a transcript: https://www.traderjoes.com/content/dam/trjo/pdfs/transcripts/Inside-TJs-Ep72-spring-shopping-list.pdf
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NOTE: Since posting, product details may have changed. Please contact our Crew for current price & availability.
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14 items on our spring shopping list episode we have some products that are entirely new wait um there’s 13 on this list 13 yep nope 12 some of these new spring products are selling out really quickly this podcast may be over before it even Starts Now 11 you ready no so
Let’s go inside Trader Joe’s I’m Tara Miller director of words and phrases and clauses and I’m Matt Sloan the culture and Innovation guy at Trader Joe’s okay Matt help me out here why would Trader Joe’s sell out of new products isn’t it like Retail 101 to keep products that customers want in
Stock yes and we do exist to sell things and selling things is what we do we would rather sell things than have things to be completely honest a lot of retailers get paid to to have stuff they get paid for that space on their shelves
We don’t do that and I think one of the reasons that a lot of our stuff especially our kind of limited edition stuff comes in and out so quickly is because it represents such a great value and that value really comes from a business model that is free from extraneous
Distractions sources of revenue different from just ringing up a can of corn at the register we have one place and one way in which we make money by selling great products and that’s it it’s the Trader Joe’s way okay our spring shopping list episode that’s why
We’re here today is to help you find out about products and we get to tell you about them maybe before they’ve hit the shelves or right as they’re hitting the shelves you’re getting the inside scoop scoop as in ice cream scoop like dul deche ice cream is actually on our list
And it’s a limited product let’s just save that one and some other limited things for later in the the show those limited products we really don’t plan to keep them year round all the time but let’s start with some new everyday products these are products that we plan
To have on the shelves every day as an item you can pick up on any shopping trip hey Tara smell that smell what exactly I’m wearing the new Trader Joe’s unscented deodorant I cannot smell you so I’m thinking it must work so let’s start with the package okay it’s like a
Little cylinder it’s green would you call that green sort of a bluish green you’ll find it in like our we call it the habo section right Health beauty Beauty and the package is like a paper based cylinder package it’s a significant reduction in plastic from most deodorant containers and it just
Trader Joe’s deodorant aluminum and baking soda free unscented say this next word it doesn’t have any chemicals that are known as phalates or parabens it’s on a deodorant basis a pretty simple ingredient deck it’s mostly a coconut oil base with a few other mineraly things forms of
Magnesium among them in there and um there’s not much to it on an aroma basis which is the whole point I also love that there are directions on the package apply liberally under arms well we’re here to help so quote unquote natural deodorants tend to be super expensive
And this one is not super expensive I mean this one comes in at um let’s see what what is it this one it’s $4.99 that’s a deal that is an amazing price difference a Super Value and just in time for spring when when you might be outdoors more and you might be sweating
A little bit more you might you might be a little smellier than normal you want to like just keep yourself smelling neutral clean up the joint let’s move on to things that we can eat shall we okay next on our list of new everyday products peccant popcorn what what is
Peccant popcorn well let’s consult the dictionary it’s a variety of maze corn the dried kernels of which swell up and burst open with a small explosive sound when heated I know a popcorn is what is peccant peccant oh I’ve been pronouncing it wrong my entire life adjective having
A pleasantly sharp taste or appetizing flavor okay synonyms please Tangy flavorful appetizing okay use peakant in a sentence I can’t wait to frequent the peakant popcorn p i q u a n t peon this bag okay before we open it this bag is awesome that was a project expertly
Covered by designer Bobby this looks like a paper bag and it says seasoned with nutritional yeast onion sea salt and garlic can you give us a little brief explainer of nutritional yeast for those who are like what are you putting yeast on popcorn cuz it might sound
Weird but you might know it by the name nooch you know nooch is similar to what was maybe previously understood as brewers yeast it is a form of yeast and it has this amazing flavor and in certain combinations Amplified with a little salt or maybe even some garlic or
Onion it takes on an almost aged cheese likee flavor approaching parmesan but there’s no Dairy there’s no cheese I just like the flavor on its own it’s Moorish it’s what Moorish as in I would like some more let’s try the popcorn oh so I get a soupy brothy
Richness it’s an Umami richness of flavor it’s not spicy but it is zesty that should be an everyday addition to our snack section let’s hope I mean customers will decide if it is so if if it is meant to be it will be because customers like it it just arrived and I
Can go get it today what could be better than chocolate glazed donuts answer chocolate glazed dut holes because dut holes are the center cut filt of the dut these are even better these are glutenfree chocolate glaze dnut holes I respectfully submit that gluten-free as an add-on thing to make it even better
Is a New Concept for me in this case these glutenfree chocolate doughnut holes which by the way are actually dairyfree too better than most commercially available doughnut holes I’ve ever tasted so doughnut holes for me come with a whole raft of expectations a whole raft because the
Dut hole is not so much a hole it’s not an absence it’s a thing unto itself and that is a beautiful ratio between outside glazed crunchy texture and inner squishiness okay but I would rather eat dnut holes than then listen to me talking about fair enough but actually
The person who I would like for us to talk to about dnut hold is the category manager of our Bakery team Amy welcome it’s a pleasure to be here please help us understand why when we decided to bring doughnut holes into Trader Joe we went gluten-free with them
We’ve got exceptional suppliers that are able to really impart that moist chewy indulgent texture and flavor in spite of it being gluten-free or as an additional attribute to it so in this case you get an even airier bite to a product with the benefit of it being gluten-free and
I remember on a strategy basis you working an angle of saying the doughnut whole format actually works particularly well with a gluten-free base and so then you can kind of cover a couple things like we don’t have any other doughnut holes correct and this one that we have
Happens to be glutenfree so if you’re maintaining a gluten-free diet and you’d love to have a doughnut treat we now have something so this is a it’s kind of a crinkly bag right so don’t bring this to the movie theater this is not going to this is the ASMR portion of the show
Here we go and I kind of just want to try them because if they’re really they’re very rich and full of chocy cocoa in other words it’s gluten-free it’s not health food like it’s a donut still it’s still a treat it’s a sweet sweet treat but there’s like 21 of these
Little doughnut holes in the Box rather than having to eat an entire doughnut these are poppable you can take them they’re an easy snack they’re poppable one fre you do have to buy the donuts they’re not free but the bite size occasion is just perfect right amount of glaze on
The outside too to make it quite a treat I don’t have many bite-sized occasions in my life it turns out and this I say with the best of intentions if you hadn’t told me those were gluten-free I would I would have no idea they just taste like little chocolate donuts
Absolutely they are as delicious I think even as our chocolate muffins that happen to be gluten-free also so you really get that flavor the texture the bite and you don’t really need the gluten they have a great freshly made by that I mean fried dut flavor in the best
Way and then the texture is so so nice I will say they’re amazing once you heat them up in an air fryer is there anything we will not air fry no the idea here is that this becomes an everyday product in the bakery section at Trader
Joe’s right so if you go in with like a doughnut craving you will always have your fix that’s a tall order challenge accepted yeah we can’t guarantee that you’re going to go into your store every single day and the minute you walk in they’re still going to have them cuz
Somebody might have bought all the donuts that day just look for that iconic pink package it’s the reference to the classic doughnut shop pink box I love that oh look I missed that reference all right this might be a good time to transition into our discussion of limited availability products for
Spring when these products sell out they’re gone not everyday products limited for for 500 limited lemon sheet cake this one’s not new it is not it’s returning and last year we kind of thought we’d sell it well but we didn’t quite understand how well we’d sellek
Yeah it was sold out in 2 weeks what do you attribute the success of the lemon sheet cake to it is the most exceptional cake that you can have anywhere and it just happens to be lemon but it’s very light and Airy it has a sour cream base
Which makes it indulgent it’s stackable so you can use it in Li of just a sheet cake for parties and entertaining oh so make a layer cake exactly these sheet cakes the mini sheet cakes the vanilla Shin Tilly and then the chocolate and then with this one
Last year there is this phenomenon on social media of the purse Fork yes exactly the purse Fork seems to have become a thing because of these cakes yes if you can make it home that’s why you keep the purse in your fork so that
You can eat it on the go keep the fork in your purse yes that’s right as long as you have that as long please don’t put that as I mean it could be a pocket Fork just watch how you sit down okay yes as long as you have a fork in your
Car or in your bag this is 18 Oz it’s a little over a pound it’s $549 like this is an amazing thing for that kind of price it actually like it sounds crazy to say it comes from a bakery so this is like a bakery made thing which sometimes means it must be
High priced it it must be expensive not the case here it should be in stores Middle March yes Middle March look at that and it runs through May we want to make sure everybody gets a chance to enjoy statement that is really dependent upon how many people buy this we
Realized how exciting it is and we wanted to make sure that we were well prepared this year versus last year how many more mini sheet cakes did we buy more than double wow here’s a story a real inside Trader Joe story so in the office we have what’s known as the magic
Table and the magic table is where samples and remnants of samples go to be eaten I guess um it’s like the elephant graveyard of product samples kind of and I have it’s a great place and like in the iterative process through tasting of different versions of she cakes I have
Had so many magical magic table moments with sheet cakes do you have a favorite the vanilla chantilli is my absolute favorite the lemon’s fun because it’s just like it shows up like this strike of lightning at least it did last year a great Tobe and it’s like oh man it’s
Like oh yeah lemony flavored it’s got lemon zest oh it lemon zest makes so many things better it’s so fragrant oh man dear she cake you are so fragrant all right I have my purse Fork a prodigious amount of frosting on this cake not overly done but it’s really
Well frosted this one is my absolute favorite of the sheet oh my God it smells so good do you like the center of the she cake or the corners I like the center oh that is so lemony it is lemony I mean that’s and that’s what we were
Going for it also has lemon juice in in the cake itself to really make sure that the flavor pops you know in every bite you really smell the cream cheese part of the cream cheese frosting MH this would be outstanding with a cup of Earl
Gry tea oh man I think it would also be great stacked in layers with the vanilla as well if you really wanted to M impress how many layers does it take to impress I would say good four oh four I was going to say odd numbers only it
Really only takes one layer to impress because it’s so delicious and impressive wow in stores by the time this podcast lands and the plan is hopefully to have it through May absolutely don’t wait till May we ordered more than double what we had last year however we can’t
Just go to the bakery and say oh no we need more all of a sudden because that takes months of planning on their part as well now thinking of plans what else do you have planned coming into stores our cinnamon Danish twist pastry we’ve been fortunate enough to find a variety
Of incredible products from Denmark this year and this one really brings kind of the history of what we know to be the cringle to life from kind of an authentic perspective the history of cringle comes to life I think the new Rank and bass cartoon yeah or like an animatronic interactive
Experience well we have quite a cringle craze in our stores it’s true and yet this is different this doesn’t look like cringle as we know it at Trader Joe’s it’s a circular pastry it’s bigger than a bread plate smaller than a hub cap I don’t know um I don’t know what the
Diameter is on this thing but man this is like a lot of pastry it is a lot of pastry it’s a round coiled pastry with cinnamon and custard and sugar that’s exactly what it is so it’s traditionally known for a pretzel knot shape but depending on the season it’s
Also baked like a wreath or a large round cake like our cinnamon twist super sized cinnamon bun almost and just referencing the cringle that we I think are more familiar with in the states it’s about the same diameter it’s just a much denser product this is a little
Over 21 oz so this is a lot well over a pound four servings I get to eat a quarter of that and for me that seems like a lot that’s for very ample servings if people are listening to this and hear cringle we’re not calling it a cringle
But in Denmark this is this is a cringle um I think that would be interesting for people because that’s not a cringle it’s a dis like so then all of a sudden are we going to have enough that’s but that’s awwesome yes right like what a
Great problem to have and we will have raspberry cringle on the Shelf at the same time they can pick and choose it’s an embarrassment of cringle riches and what do we call it again what’s its formal name cinnamon twist Danish a Danish Pastry with cinnamon and custard
Style filling we could have called it Danish cinnamon twist Danish because it’s both cuz it’s from Denmark and it’s a Danish Pastry it’s been baked in Denmark since the Middle Ages really and it’s a huge part of celebrations known as the Danish hoga which is an expression of being together around with
Fans and family around a warm atmosphere so I noticed on the box that there are optional heating instructions if you heat it up it’s going to taste even better exactly but it’s just 3 to 5 minutes and this one is another great option for the air fryer ha I have an
Ally here Matt there are air fryers large enough to hold this Danish hey cut one of your four servings every cinnamon roll born in a Mall food court dreams of achieving this level of deliciousness that’s great so much cinnamon so much cinnamon it is very enrobed in all the layers
Cinnamon can sometimes in great amounts impart bitterness not the case here not at all it’s very balanced with the sugar and the dough it’s so delicious I’m kind of Blown Away by how good the flavor is here and the texture it’s soft I understand the box says for servings but
To me this is like this is eight I think it’s yeah multiple occasions as well it could be replace your coffee cake in the morning says the guy with his mouth full of Danish um this one’s going to show up in stores later in March a little bit
Around Mother’s Day Easter we’ll have it also well done nicely timed I’d say pull out the purse Fork again quite honestly you might need a fork lift it’s so large a purse fork lift it’s a new Olympic sport Amy thank you so much for spending time with us this was fun absolutely and
Delicious we’ll see you at the magic table we just had a gooey cinnamon twist Danish yes yes and I’m still just so appreciative of that moment right so I have something else that’s gooey okay we have a new Candy item they are brown sugar Boba Mochi yeah so this is just
All about the texture it’s squishy rice dough on the outside and then inside a little Boba Pearl like pillowy like squishy pillowy and it’s this very soft soft texture very sweet um and that’s fun to eat it’s just kind of like a neat sort of chewy fluffy thing they’re
Individually wrapped so they don’t cuz otherwise they would stick together and it would just be be like a boba log yes like a boba brick basically be all stuck together new product idea they should be in stores right about when this podcast lands hey you know what I forgot about
Something what we have ice cream good grief Trader Joe’s dolce de leche ice cream caramel flavored ice cream with a smooth milk caramel swirl cuz if you think of like the phrase D de leche like candy from milk I guess if you got literal with it I love that cooked sugar
Approaching burnt sugar flavor I have high high hopes for this I’m digging right in oh man my preferred way to eat this will be a small scoop with a screamingly hot shot of espresso poured over it a version of an avogado it’d be like a caramel macchiato
Off aato Mama Mia Mama Mia let me go yeah when do we think we’re going to have this ice cream late March it’s a limited thing because we don’t have a lot of room for ice cream because we don’t have a lot of room right our stores are small our freezer cases are
Small so we cycle ice cream flavors in and out so that we can have a whole bunch of different ones right if we had if we had it every day we wouldn’t have the opportunity to bring in other flavors at other times of year or even further constrained because only one
Part of the Frozen aisle is cold enough to hold ice cream a special part of that Frozen aisle that runs at a colder temperature than the other stuff so ice cream needs to be colder than frozen blueberries say really I’m glad that we made room for this this doesn’t have a
Lot of inclusions as they say in the business this is what eats like that idea of a super premium ice cream meaning not a whole lot of air whipped into this so ice cream as we’ve mentioned before in this country it’s sold by volume not by weight so how you
Fill the container matters so some ice creams are lighter in weight than others because they have more overrun more air whipped into them this is a heavy ice cream and it feels nice and dense and Rich and oh that that dul deeta caramel flavor um it’s so great on its own I
Actually think it would be really good with bananas like a version of bananas foster with some of this would be wonderful this is delicious when life gives you lemons have them made into Sicilian organic lemon juice this is a shelf stable bottle of lemon juice and while Not
Unusual to find lemon juice in different places it’s often made with the use of preservative chemicals to hold its color to hold its Aroma this is just lemon juice from Sicilian lemons from Italy often times the lemon juice that you find in bottles in grocery stores is lemon juice from concentrate
So it’s all pressed and concentrated and then reconstituted to be bottled later on this is freshly pressed and pasteurized which is impressive and of course someone’s probably listening this and saying like isn’t it easy to squeeze a lemon easy peasy lemon squee squeezy but if you don’t have the time or the
Inclination this is at the ready and by the way there is a very particular flavor profile that you get from a sicilian grown lemon and they’re they’re famous and I don’t always have access to a sicilian lemon I got a guy the only ingredient in this juice is organic
Lemon juice on the nutrition facts panel it’s zero calories yeah zero fat zero sodium zero carbohydrate zero protein and that’s because it’s a small serving a one teaspoon 5ml serving does not have enough of any of those things to register as one or more if you’re below
0.5 you round down and so it doesn’t mean there’s an absence of carbohydrates it’s just to your comment there’s so little there it doesn’t register because we have to round to effectively a whole number right organic Sicilian lemon juice should be arriving in stores right around the time this podcast lands on
Your podcast player so and do we think that’s a special limited kind of thing this one will be there every day so I think that that’ll be handy hey there’s another product that’s everyday this is the one I’m probably most excited about Trader Joe’s Thai peanut saté sauce love
This stuff it’s already in stores we’ve had peanut sauce before but it’s been a while and I think this is better than any of the peanut sauces we’ve had it is a thinner more pourable consistency than some of the more past likee versions using this is really easy to spoon over
Grilled chicken grilled tofu grilled fish to spoon over and toss into noodles it’s got amazing flavor sort of unintentionally it is vegan um it it has no fish fish sauce prob no fish sauce it has red curry paste but it does not have any animal drived ingredients in it so let’s
Sauté it is Wine Time hi James tell us who you are this is your first time on the podcast I’m the category manager for wine beer and spirit seeking out new wines new additions working with national Brands as well maintaining a lot of our customer favorites that we
Have already we had a specific wine we had it last year we had a small amount of it it went a little crazy we called it the puppet it was a form of orange wine the puppet it has nothing to do with Kermit the Frog not howdy Duty
Explain to me orange wine and the puppet orange wine also known as skin contact wine it’s made in a similar way as white wine ultimately is spending more time in contact with the skins of the grapes in that sense is pulling more color out of the the grape skins into the final
Product I’m still a little bit confused and I apologize so what is the difference between an orange wine and a rosé that’s a a good question orange wine or skin contact wine is similar in a lot of ways in the sense that Rosé was made from red grapes and pulled some of
The color out of the grapes and from those skins of Those Grapes but didn’t have the extended period that a red wine might have and other than the color of the wine what’s interesting about orange wine there’s a little different intensity of flavors that comes through
As well as kind of a different feeling in the mouth there’s a little more texture and phenolics that come through the final product phenolics tell us what that means break it down James phenolics are essentially coming you want me to beat box behind you I just keep thinking
Of phonics which can’t be the same thing as phics hooked on phenolics um poor Jade so phenolics are a component of the wine that kind of impacts the mouth feel and the texture that you’re experiencing as a result result of of how the wine
Was made so it can vary a lot this is not a sweet wine and yet it has a full mouth feel heavier body that I found really worked nicely with food yeah I agree it’s offers that difference from a whole white wine I think the way it was
Made with a kind of a gentle approach of extracting that color and tannins into the wine helps it pair well with a lot of different types of foods I know that we had a very limited quantity last year of this and it really caught people’s attention and people were clamoring for
It and it was not available in most of the stores that sell wine what’s going to happen this year good news last year was very limited as you said in California this year we will be releasing it across the country that is good news what I saw on our list was a
New entry into this label that we’ve called the puppet and it’s described here as a chillable red so tell tell us about a chillable red cuz my understanding is you tend to not chill red wine in the world of wine there’s a lot of different variations of how much
It’s suggested to to chill wine from heavy Reds with less chilling to a lighter style like P Noir or balet using the G grape if there’s a a lower tanin structure for the wine then it might be better to to chill it to enjoy it at its
Its best okay I’ve often heard about or thought about room temperature as different from Cellar temperature and I’ve heard some people talking about drinking wine at Cellar temperature cooler than room temperature and I’ve heard other people talk about this in this country in the US that we generally
Drink our red wines too warm and our white wines too cold is there like a sweet spot that doesn’t use celsius that I can figure out how to handle you I think for this chillable red The Sweet Spot is in that 50 to 60 Dees Fahrenheit
And likely closer to the 50 end of that range knowing that once you take it out of the fridge or an ice bucket and pour it it’s going to start warming up to your surrounding temperature and if you leave the bottle out then it will do the
Same and maybe I should just chill but is this like hipster nonsense or is it a real thing I mean what is going on here there’s a trend aspect of it but there’s also a really long history of aspect of it too in America we may be chilling
Incorrectly in a lot of cases perhaps in the old world regions where G originates that history is a little more ingrained in into the common practice these wines called the puppet there’ll be the skin contact wine the orange wine and the chillable red and this year they should
Both be available in all of our stores that sell wine that is correct so exciting yes end of March I know that prices vary by region because different areas have different pricing restrictions but I’ve seen orange wines out there for 20 bucks and more we’re hitting a price point
Well under $10 correct that’s pretty great and this is exciting stuff and I can’t stop singing that great song I’m Your Puppet you just sing it quietly and we’ll all be okay yeah still don’t understand why it’s called the puppet naming wines can be tricky because there
Are a lot of wine names out there and you think you land on a great idea and maybe you can’t use use that and this name the puppet was already in use for a wine from this producer screw top bottles not cork correct both are screw
Top easy for summer picnic ready for the picnic I thought you said lickable on my basket everything tastes better if you’re outside these two wines are officially on our spring shopping list for the podcast anything else you’re excited about we have plenty of new wines coming especially in our uh TJ
Reserve program a lot of new Imports in the mix including from regions in France like rusto and bandol a lot of different types of labels coming soon so this is your first visit to the podcast yes hopefully it won’t be your last visit to the podcast I don’t think it will be
Because we’re going to want to talk about more stuff yeah hope we didn’t scare you off okay we’re going to let things go now you’re excused okay thank you James so that’s it there are new everyday products at Trader Joe’s and new limited products for spring of
Course there are lots more of both this is just a partial list check out the Fearless flyer check out Trader joe.com keep your eye on our Instagram and to make sure you get every new podcast episode hit that free subscribe or follow button it is free and worth every
Penny until next time thanks for listening and thanks for Listening