Show notes
For many, the official start of Fall isn't the Autumn Equinox or the changing leaves. It's when Trader Joe's Fall Finds hit the shelves. For a limited time, the store is chock full of orange-colored packages filled with pumpkin, apple, and maple goodies that we simply can't resist!
Watch on YouTube
https://youtu.be/0YMMZiCt7fw
While Trader Joe's isn't by any means a one-stop shop for our family's groceries, there is one thing they do particularly well: capturing the spirit of the Fall season and getting their patrons excited to shop there.
Visiting a Trader Joe's in the Fall means loading up on items you can't usually find at other times of the year, such as pumpkin brioche bread, pumpkin pancake mix, and pumpkin kringles to name a few.
Why are Trader Joe's Fall Finds so popular?
Scarcity seems to be a key motivator for these purchases; the idea that in a few weeks, these items will no longer be available so customers may feel compelled to "stock up now".
Another likely contributor to the success of Trader Joe's Fall Finds is the popularity of pumpkin spice as a flavor.
Essentially, humans love to be reminded of Fall and the feelings of home, family, and nostalgia, and according to Matt Johnson, a psychologist who specializes in marketing psychology, pumpkin spice is a flavor that's closely tied to the arrival of these feelings.
In this episode, we discuss our favorite (and not-so-favorite) Fall finds and how we feel about shopping at Trader Joe's in the Fall.
Note: we did not receive any compensation from Costco and the opinions expressed in this podcast are solely our own.
Resources
The Psychology of the Pumpkin Spice Latte, by Matt Johnson Ph.D.
Sip and Feast Recipe for Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter Sauce
Sip and Feast Recipe for Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Brown Butter
Sip and Feast Recipe for Pumpkin Mule
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Transcript
Intro
James (00:00):Welcome back to the Sip and Feast Podcast. Today we're talking Trader Joe's and specifically, the fall seasonal items at Trader Joe's. You can see I have my fall seasonal shirt on. What do you think about that?, Tara?
Tara (00:15):Looks very different from all your other flannels, which are also, could be fall seasonal.
James (00:22):The ones that I have from my cooking videos, I don't want to get dirty, so these are the ones maybe that I wear out.
Tara (00:29):This is the one you don't want to get dirty.
James (00:30):That's right.
Tara (00:31):Yeah.
James (00:31):No, the cooking video ones, they actually act as aprons.
Tara (00:35):That's right.
James (00:36):That's why they're on the dark side like that darker blue flannel because if they're black and blue, when you get some sauce or something on there, you can't even see.
Tara (00:45):I'm going to jump right into a question right now.
James (00:47):Okay.
Tara (00:48):It's not an audience question, although, I'm sure it's on their minds. Do you wear anything other than flannels?
James (00:53):Yes, I do. A few people recognize me because I'm famous. They recognized me at Pottery Barn out east in Long Island. It was multiple people in one day, and I had a T-shirt on that day, so they got to see me in a T-shirt.
Tara (01:10):Oh, I don't even remember. Were you wearing a T-shirt?
James (01:10):I was.
Tara (01:11):Oh, wow.
James (01:12):Yeah.
Tara (01:12):Lucky for them.
James (01:13):Yeah.
Tara (01:14):Sun's out, gun's out, huh?
James (01:15):That's right. Yeah. Sun's out, belly's out. All right, so enough of that. Let's get into it right now.
Background and pumpkin spice history
Tara (01:23):So Trader Joe's is known for their seasonal finds, right? It's like for us, not so much you because you don't really go there with me, but every year when the air starts getting a little bit cooler, Sammy and I get really excited about going to Trader Joe's because we want to see if there's any new fall things. But we also know that those tried-and-true fall food items specifically are going to be there, and it's going to be an exciting time when we get it. It's just going to make everything great.
James (02:03):I think it's exciting for a lot of people, I do. I think that's part of the allure of Trader Joe's. Seasonality is huge at Trader Joe's, probably bigger than any other store as far as I can think. Food Supermarket, Costco, really anything, Trader Joe's, their business is really… a huge part of their business is selling seasonal items. They rotate the shelves. Because the stores are so small, they're constantly rotating what they have. They can't fit everything in one store.
Tara (02:35):I think that almost works to their advantage, too. I think part of their business model is founded on that seasonality concept-
James (02:45):And scarcity.
Tara (02:45):I was going to say, it creates that feeling of scarcity where you're like, "If I don't get this pumpkin pancake mix right now and buy three or four boxes of it," guilty, done that, "I'm not going to be able to get it for a whole other year.
James (03:01):Well, and they run out and then they stop… it won't be there anymore. So it could be a limited run, so maybe you have to go to another Trader Joe's to find it. It could also be where some person goes in there, and I'm not naming any names, who ends up buying 30 of one particular item.
Tara (03:19):That's not me.
James (03:21):It wasn't you, but do you remember when we saw the mother load-
Tara (03:23):Yes, okay.
James (03:23):… at that person's house that time?
Tara (03:24):Yes.
James (03:25):I'm not going to mention their name-
Tara (03:26):Ah, yes.
James (03:26):… 'cause I think they watch this, but I opened this cabinet. It was in their basement, and this person purported to make everything homemade. I opened the cabinet, and there was about 40 of their fall harvest sauce, which we'll talk about that one in a minute, I'm not a big fan of. I know Tara likes it.
Tara (03:46):That's on my list of items we're going to talk about later.
James (03:48):But it looked like this person just cleared it out, cleared out a local Trader Joe's.
Tara (03:54):Hey, no judgment.
James (03:56):We're talking fall items here. Again, Trader Joe's pumpkin spice, they go hand-in-hand, but believe it or not, Trader isn't the company that's responsible for the pumpkin spice craze. Right, Tara?
Tara (04:10):Yeah. Actually, so we do talk about this in a Patreon podcast episode where the whole episode is dedicated to pumpkin spice, I think. What did we title it? What-
James (04:21):Oh, yeah.
Tara (04:21):WTF is Pumpkin Spice?
James (04:24):No, no, I titled it The Pumpkinization of America.
Tara (04:26):Oh, okay.
James (04:27):Yeah.
Tara (04:28):I wanted to call it WTF is Pumpkin Spice?
James (04:30):So listen, we're just telling you because we already discussed this on there, but we want to go over it a little bit again right now.
Tara (04:37):Yeah. What we found when we did our little bit of research on the topic-
James (04:43):You're always guaranteed a little bit of research when you tune into the Sip and Feast Podcast.
Tara (04:47):Well, I do like to fact check some things. I had a hypothesis and the hypothesis turned out to be correct. Humans basically love to be reminded of fall because fall creates those feelings of home, maybe turning inward a little bit, being with your family, nostalgia, you know that the holidays, like the Christmas holidays, Jewish holidays, et cetera, you know that they are around the corner once fall passes. So fall creates this cozy feeling in all of us. According to this gentleman-
James (05:23):Cozy.
Tara (05:24):… yes, Matt Johnson, who is a psychologist specializing in marketing psychology, he says that pumpkin spice flavor triggers all of those feelings. So pumpkin spice doesn't always have pumpkin in it. It's usually the spices that are associated with pumpkin pie. So like All spice, clove, cinnamon, sometimes ginger, nutmeg, any combination of those ingredients, those trigger those feelings. As Jim mentioned, it was not Trader Joe's that started this craze. It really can be attributed to Starbucks in 2003 when they released their pumpkin spice latte and that essentially kickstarted the pumpkin spice craze that endures to this day.
James (06:13):Again, we spoke more about it, but Starbucks' market capitalization probably prior to pumpkin spice latte coming out was probably under $10 billion company. Now they're $100 billion market capitalization. Obviously, there's other factors involved for their success over these last 20 years. It has been 20 years now, since 2003 we're talking. They did that and then you started seeing the beer coming on into your distributors and into your stores a couple of years later. It wasn't that the tail wagging the dog essentially, Starbucks started it all. Now you can't find a beer company or really any company that doesn't have a pumpkin spice product.
Tara (06:54):That's right.
James (06:55):So again, that's more there. I think now let's just get back into Trader Joe's.
Tara (06:59):Yeah. Before we start even going down this path, similar to Costco, we are not sponsored in any way by Trader Joe's, so these opinions are completely our own.
James (07:11):Yeah, damn right, we're not sponsored. I don't even really like Trader Joe's. All right?
Tara (07:14):I do.
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