Popularity won’t always save some fan favorites.
By Hannah Docter-Loeb
When I came back from abroad, there was one thing I couldn’t wait for. Sure, I was excited to see my family and my dog and eat a Chipotle bowl on American soil. But what I missed more than anything was Trader Joe’s San Francisco–style sourdough.
A staple in my kitchen, I use it for all sorts of concoctions. It pairs super well with olive oil, salt, and the Trader Joe’s honey chevre goat cheese. It’s the perfect foundation for grilled cheeses, or basic turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. The bread is even just good as-is, with a little salt or butter after a night out. It’s truly multifaceted—or at least it was. When I made a recent pilgrimage to my local TJ’s, it was nowhere to be found.
Others had been similarly disappointed. On TikTok and Reddit, users lamented the apparent discontinuation of the product. Google searches for the sourdough peaked in May, when customers first noticed it had disappeared from the aisles. Someone even created a Change.org petition in hopes of bringing the beloved bread back, stating “my friends will die without this bread.” Why would a store discontinue such a fan favorite?
It’s happened before, too. Years ago, the store discontinued the mini ravioli I grew up on. My fellow Slatesters have also noticed their favorite products disappearing from shelves: lemon pepper seasoning, frozen cioppino seafood stew, frozen yogurt, horseradish potato chips, and more.
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Wanting to get to the bottom of this, I sent a media request to Trader Joe’s. They referred me to a mini-episode of the Trader Joe’s podcast ICYMI (not to be confused with Slate’s internet podcast ICYMI) about why the company discontinues products in the first place. And it usually doesn’t have to do with the product itself, vice president of marketing Matt Sloan says on the podcast.
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“If you don’t have high volume or growing volume, the costs of producing and handling a slow-selling product are such that it doesn’t make business sense for us,” he says. “And if you think about how small our stores are—and on a relative basis, they’re smaller than most grocery stores.”
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Most grocery stores have to contend with manufacturers’ “slotting fees”; in other words, what they pay to keep items on the shelf. At TJ’s, items that don’t sell as well will affect the store’s bottom line since a company isn’t paying to place them there, hence incentivizing discontinuation.
Given the overwhelming popularity of the sourdough, I couldn’t believe this could be the case. But it’s also possible that there are other factors at play that actually don’t have to do with customer demand: supply chain issues, lack of storage facility space, competitive pressures, high manufacturing fees, or just general desire for a newer and maybe even better product. After all, Trader Joe’s prides itself on unique products.
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“We work hard; the product development team, the tasting panel group, they work on things by tasting them,” Sloan explains in the podcast. “They think these things make sense. They think that they’re delicious. They think they’re worth customers’ time and attention. And if that doesn’t pan out in that way, well, we’ve gotta move on.”
It’s also possible the products that go missing are just seasonal. Just as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” starts playing on the radio, Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s will reappear on Trader Joe’s shelves.
Other grocery stores face similar pressures. “Costco would rather not sell an item than sell it at a price that’s too high,” Chuck Howard, an assistant professor of marketing at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School, said in a 2022 CNN article. “It would be off-brand for them to be selling things that consumers think would be too expensive.” So even if you’re not a Trader Joe’s shopper, your favorite products elsewhere could disappear, too.
The Trader Joe’s website does have a contact form to make requests to bring back discontinued products, acknowledging it can be disappointing and even “devastating.” I also followed up with the media person to ask if there’s potential for the specific sourdough to return, but haven’t heard back yet. In the meantime, I guess I’ll give the sourdough replacement a shot.
- Food
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