Talk:Trader Joe's

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German vs. American

Remembering that the point of articles is to inform a reader, I advocate that the lede remain as identifying this as an American chain. While obviously owned by some German entity, it's confusing to start by saying it is connected to Germany. Ifnord (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2021 TC)

It's not confusing, it's factual. But, Wiki clearly doesn't have any guidelines because companies are not consistently described. That's what's confusing. Maybe someone should come up with some rule and apply it across the board. Some examples:

- Subway is called "American." It's privately-owned by Americans, but has stores in many countries.

- McDonald's is called "American." It's publicly-owned by anybody and has stores in many countries.

- Starbucks is called "American multinational." It's publicly-owned by anybody and has stores in many countries.

- Tim Hortons is called "multinational." Its ownership is difficult to boil down, but even though it has stores in many countries, it's primarily associated with Canada.

The lead. Or the lede. Whatever.

Why do we need to mention the German corporate ownership of this essentially American company in the second sentence, given that we go into it in a bit more detail in the little history essay in the second paragraph? Why do we say stuff like "according to TJ's management, (it) operates independently"? Why not just say it operates independently? Why do we mention the completely unrelated (other than family ties) Aldi Süd? What is a "fresh format" grocery store? Why does it matter enough for the lead that in some particular year (2015) it "became" a competitor in that field?

Here's the lede stripped of unnecessary detail:

Trader Joe's is a American chain of grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California with over 500 stores nationwide.

The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe in Pasadena, California. It was owned by German entrepreneur Theo Albrecht from 1979 until his death in 2010, when ownership passed to his heirs. The company has offices in Monrovia and Boston.

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Everything else will be happier in context in the body of the article. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 22:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• I absolutely agree with your edits. Everything else is misplaced and slapped together, your version has all the necessary details and removes the weird commentary on Aldi being independent. It's interesting for the article, but not for the lede. --Cerebral726 (talk) 12:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• OK, WP:BOLDly done. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Aldi connection

On the Aldi page, it says that Aldi Nord is operating "as Trader Joe's". But on this page, there is virtually no reference to Aldi, and implies that the only connection is that the previous owner also happened to be the owner of Aldi Nord.

So, what's the story? Is Trader Joe's essentially just Aldi Nord with a different name? Or something different? Stevage 02:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Trader Joe's is fully owned by the family of Theo Albrecht (founder of Aldi Nord), who died in 2010. And yes, it's more or less a subsidiary of Aldi Nord, with a different name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.157.32.177 (talk) 23:26, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

TJ's is wholly owned by the Albrecht family(?) trust, along with Aldi Nord, and Aldi Sud(?) and perhaps Aldi US. While these each run independently (maybe not US which may be wholly controlled by Aldi Sud), they may cooperate on a product by product basis. They may also cooperate with other companies, including suppliers, but neither TJ's nor other companies will say so because of NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) formal or informal.

TJ's is famously and habitually secretive (I do not say notorious: they are also a habitually responsible company), so independent articles are nearly always going to be: (1) original research, usually by fans of the store; (2) anecdotal; or (3) from a source that is not independent of TJ's (such as Bronco Wine Company which makes Charles Shaw).

That's just the way TJ's is, and Wikipedia cannot change TJ's policies. All we can do is write the best article we can within the primary source information TJ's allows released. TJ's might bend to a request from a Wikipedian for an interview (though I doubt it), but that would be original research, the only path to more information about TJ's. Even articles from generally reputable sources will be anecdotal, have a conflict of interest, or be some random person's original research. That's just the way TJ's is, and Wikipedia cannot change TJ's policies.

It's kind of like writing an article about the NSA or GCHQ, except TJ's has better security, and being privately owned, they have no reporting requirements as a public company would.

Maybe the solution is just to start the article with a disclaimer about TJ's secrecy, acknowledge we can't meet Wikipedia's strict source standards, and do the best we can. Whinging about the state of information about TJ's (or going off in a huff) doesn't add to the article or improve the information. The standard Wikipedia warnings are futile. TJ's has been running like this since it was bought from Joe and long past the Albrecht brothers' deaths.Laguna CA (talk) 14:48, 13 July 2022 (UTC)