Categories: News

Trader Joe’s founder Joe Coulombe, dead at age 89

Joe Coulombe, the founder of Trader Joe’s, died Friday at the age of 89. Coulombe launched the nautical-themed “neighborhood grocery store” in the late 1960s. It soon became a Southern California institution with a marketing plan aimed at customers who were “overeducated and underpaid,” reports The L.A. Times. The piece explores TJ’s signature quirks, e.g., dividing employees into “crew members,” “mates,” and a store manager dubbed “The Captain.” Elements of its success story also include: no major advertising, Trader Joe’s-labeled products, and living wages with benefits for its workers. In 1979, Coulombe sold the company to Theo Albrecht, co-founder of the supermarket chain Aldi.

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

3 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

3 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

3 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

3 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago