Inside 'Teflon Joe’s': Why your favorite grocery store is not what you think
This story is the first in a three-part series exploring Trader Joe’s brand identity and business practices.
这个故事是探索 Trader Joe 的品牌形象和商业实践的三部分系列中的第一部分。
Click here for the second installment on Trader Joe’s record number of food recalls, and secret product sourcing .
单击此处，了解《商人乔》创纪录的食品召回数量和秘密产品采购的第二部分。
Click here for the final installment, an investigation into patterns of harassment and growing frustration among store employees.
单击此处查看最后一部分，这是对商店员工的骚扰模式和日益增长的挫败感的调查。
In March, the internet’s most-hyped handbag was not a luxury offering from Chloé or a new viral Uniqlo shoulder bag.
三月份，互联网上最受炒作的手提包并不是 Chloé 的奢侈品或新风靡的优衣库单肩包。
It was a $2.99 mini canvas tote made in Vietnam for Trader Joe’s.
这是一款价值 2.99 美元的迷你帆布手提包，在越南为 Trader Joe's 制造。
The humble tote got swooped up so fast, stores were forced to implement crowd-control tactics and cap the number they allowed shoppers to buy.
这种不起眼的手提包迅速流行起来，商店被迫实施人群控制策略并限制允许购物者购买的数量。
After seeing the bags on @traderjoeslist, an Instagram fan account with 1.9 million followers, content creator Thaddeus Yan ended up making more than a dozen trips to stores across Los Angeles on a quest to land just one.
内容创作者 Thaddeus Yan 在拥有 190 万粉丝的 Instagram 粉丝帐户 @traderjoeslist 上看到这些包袋后，他去了洛杉矶各地的商店十几次，只为了买一只。
(He eventually succeeded at the eighth location.) Others, like TikTok user Elinor Kim, filmed free-for-alls that went viral, with footage of customers lunging after the totes like seagulls fighting for scraps of bread.
（他最终在第八家店取得了成功。）其他人，比如 TikTok 用户埃莉诺·金 (Elinor Kim)，拍摄了一段疯传的混战视频，视频中顾客们像海鸥争夺面包片一样追赶手提包。
While the grocery chain’s loyal customers seemed eager to brave any hardship in their pursuit of the limited-edition bags, Trader Joe’s workers greeted the chaos with dread—an increasingly common employee reaction to the buying sprees that define the modern Trader Joe’s shopping experience.
虽然这家杂货连锁店的忠实顾客似乎愿意冒着任何困难来购买限量版手袋，但 Trader Joe's 的员工却以恐惧迎接混乱——这是一种越来越常见的员工对疯狂购买的反应，这种购买狂潮定义了现代 Trader Joe's 的购物体验。
One worker in the Northeast told Fast Company that the crew at their store joked about quitting en masse but taking the mini totes as severance, to “list them on eBay for hundreds of dollars,” as shoppers do.
东北部的一名工人告诉 Fast Company，他们店里的工作人员开玩笑说要集体辞职，但会把迷你手提包作为遣散费，像购物者一样“在 eBay 上以数百美元的价格列出它们”。
This person asked to remain anonymous because they feared disciplinary reaction from the company, a concern that may be justified.
此人要求保持匿名，因为他们担心公司会做出纪律反应，这种担忧可能是有道理的。
In recent years, numerous workers have sued for wrongful termination or taken other legal action, saying Trader Joe’s fired them after they criticized COVID safety policies or in one case wrote the corporate office a letter expressing disagreement with the company’s Black Lives Matter stance.
近年来，许多员工因不当解雇而提起诉讼或采取其他法律行动，称 Trader Joe's 在批评新冠病毒安全政策后解雇了他们，或者有一次给公司办公室写了一封信，表示不同意公司的“黑人生命也是命”立场。
Those weren’t the only problems facing the chain behind the scenes as Mini-Tote Mania seized the headlines.
随着迷你托特包热潮成为头条新闻，这些并不是这家连锁店在幕后面临的唯一问题。
One day after the bags dropped, Trader Joe’s warned consumers that 30 tons of its popular steamed chicken soup dumplings could contain plastic—the 16th product recall in nine months, spanning everything from common pathogens (listeria, E.
袋子掉落一天后，Trader Joe’s 警告消费者，其受欢迎的鸡汤包中的 30 吨可能含有塑料——这是 9 个月内第 16 次产品召回，涵盖了从常见病原体（李斯特菌、大肠杆菌、大肠杆菌）等所有病原体。
coli, salmonella) to rocks, glass shards, metal pieces, and insects in products.
大肠杆菌、沙门氏菌）到产品中的岩石、玻璃碎片、金属碎片和昆虫。
Weeks later, several makers of the kinds of quirky international snack foods you might find on the chain’s shelves accused Trader Joe’s of stealing their ideas.
几周后，几家生产奇特国际休闲食品的制造商指责 Trader Joe’s 窃取了他们的创意。
Just days after that, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at the Department of Labor slapped Trader Joe’s with a record fine of nearly $217,000 for repeatedly violating federal workplace safety regulations.
几天后，美国劳工部职业安全与健康管理局对 Trader Joe's 处以创纪录的近 217,000 美元罚款，原因是屡次违反联邦工作场所安全法规。
Finally, in the meantime, employees at stores around the country have mounted a drive to unionize —partly in response to some of these issues—and Trader Joe’s has responded by aggressively trying to thwart those efforts .
最后，与此同时，全国各地商店的员工纷纷发起成立工会的运动——部分是为了应对其中一些问题——而 Trader Joe's 的回应是积极试图阻止这些努力。
With a few exceptions noted throughout the text, Trader Joe’s declined to comment on most of the specific allegations we cover.
除了文中指出的一些例外情况外，Trader Joe's 拒绝对我们报道的大多数具体指控发表评论。
In a statement to Fast Company , a spokesperson for the chain pointed to the company’s “widespread recognition as a great place to work,” citing its inclusion on several publications’ “best places to work” lists.
在给 Fast Company 的一份声明中，该连锁店的发言人指出，该公司“被广泛认为是一个理想的工作场所”，并被多家出版物列入“最佳工作场所”名单。
Related: Sexual harassment, union busting, and a spotty safety record: The dark side of working at Trader Joe’s
相关：性骚扰、工会破坏和不稳定的安全记录：在 Trader Joe’s 工作的阴暗面
These articles are based on hundreds of conversations with current and former employees and industry experts, internal documents, and a trove of regulatory records and legal filings.
这些文章基于与现任和前任员工以及行业专家的数百次对话、内部文件以及大量监管记录和法律文件。
The series will take readers inside Trader Joe’s secretive business operations, chronicle years of workplace safety issues and employee unrest, and examine the company’s marketing missteps and shaky record on product recalls—all while somehow remaining one of America’s most beloved and seemingly invincible brands.
该系列将带领读者深入 Trader Joe 的秘密业务运营，记录多年来的工作场所安全问题和员工骚乱，并审视该公司的营销失误和产品召回的不稳定记录，同时以某种方式保持美国最受欢迎且看似无敌的品牌之一。
The average Trader Joe’s shopper is a white married college graduate between 25 and 44 who earns $80,000 a year, “over-indexes” on social media use, and considers themselves to be early adopters of new trends.
Trader Joe’s 的平均购物者是 25 岁至 44 岁之间的白人已婚大学毕业生，年收入 8 万美元，对社交媒体的使用“指数过高”，并认为自己是新趋势的早期采用者。
Arguably the key to Trader Joe’s success—and certainly its most envied by peers—is that the company has been so adept at encouraging these loyal fans to be its chief evangelizers and de facto marketing team.
可以说，Trader Joe 成功的关键——当然也是最受同行羡慕的——是该公司非常善于鼓励这些忠实的粉丝成为其主要的传播者和事实上的营销团队。
The chain is privately owned and doesn’t release revenue data.
该连锁店是私营企业，不发布收入数据。
But according to Progressive Grocer ’s list of top North American grocery retailers, Trader Joe’s generates an estimated $17 billion in annual sales from 560 stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia—with a minimal digital footprint and no rewards programs of any kind.
但根据 Progressive Grocer 的北美顶级杂货零售商名单，Trader Joe's 遍布 42 个州和哥伦比亚特区的 560 家商店的年销售额估计为 170 亿美元——其数字足迹极小，且没有任何形式的奖励计划。
Its official marketing is all but nonexistent: little more than the Fearless Flyer newsletter, a popular podcast called Inside Trader Joe’s , and a modest social media presence, which consists of an Instagram with 3.2 million followers plus a LinkedIn company page and a YouTube channel that mostly cross-posts the podcast.
它的官方营销几乎不存在：只不过是《Fearless Flyer》时事通讯、一个名为“Inside Trader Joe’s”的流行播客，以及一个适度的社交媒体存在，其中包括一个拥有 320 万粉丝的 Instagram、一个 LinkedIn 公司页面和一个主要交叉发布播客的 YouTube 频道。
By comparison, Whole Foods is active on every major social platform and some of the smaller ones too.
相比之下，全食超市在各大社交平台和一些较小的社交平台上都很活跃。
Walmart posts several TikToks per day and has 32 million Facebook followers.
沃尔玛每天都会发布多个 TikTok，并在 Facebook 上拥有 3200 万粉丝。
Kroger spends $1 billion a year on more traditional marketing.
克罗格每年在更传统的营销上花费 10 亿美元。
Trader Joe’s, meanwhile, has succeeded by “purposely creating a culture that spawns affinity groups that will carry their news faster and more deeply than traditional PR,” says Nandi Welch, head of business strategy for the branding agency Rupture Studio (which has no business relationship with Trader Joe’s).
与此同时，Trader Joe’s 的成功在于“有目的地创造一种文化，催生亲和力团体，比传统公关更快、更深入地传播新闻”，品牌代理机构 Rupture Studio（与 Trader Joe’s 没有业务关系）的业务战略主管南迪·韦尔奇 (Nandi Welch) 表示。
These groups can be niche; Welch once belonged to a “Black women who love Trader Joe’s” Facebook group.
这些群体可能是利基群体；韦尔奇曾经是“热爱乔氏交易的黑人女性”Facebook 群组的成员。
But they can also deliver large audiences: Besides @traderjoeslist , with 1.9 million followers, other popular Instagram fan accounts include @traderjoes5itemsorless (621,000 followers), @traderjoeskitchen (422,000 followers), @traderjoesobsessed (903,000 followers), and many more.
但它们也可以吸引大量受众：除了拥有 190 万粉丝的 @traderjoeslist 之外，其他受欢迎的 Instagram 粉丝帐户还包括@traderjoes5itemsorless（621,000 名粉丝）、@traderjoeskitchen（422,000 名粉丝）、@traderjoesobsessed（903,000 名粉丝）等等。
Most of these influencers clearly note that Trader Joe’s does not pay them; in this ecosystem, the spoils simply go to whomever can upstage the others’ weekly grocery hauls.
这些影响者中的大多数都明确指出，Trader Joe's 不向他们支付报酬；在这个生态系统中，谁能抢走别人每周的杂货采购量，谁就能获得战利品。
“That is the shopper behavior Trader Joe’s has trained everyone on,” says Welch, whose clients have included Nike, Spotify, Moët Hennessy, and Dove.
“这就是 Trader Joe's 训练每个人的购物行为，”韦尔奇说，他的客户包括耐克、Spotify、酩悦轩尼诗和多芬。
“It goes to how much people can be distracted.
“这取决于有多少人可以分心。
You can overcome huge obstacles as a brand if you provide everyday positive reinforcement for people.”
如果你每天为人们提供积极的强化，你就可以克服作为一个品牌的巨大障碍。”
All this goodwill online is a powerful safeguard against bad PR.
所有这些网上善意都是防止不良公关的有力保障。
Even amid the barrage of negative press this year, the grocery chain’s public image remained strong.
即使今年负面新闻接二连三，这家杂货连锁店的公众形象仍然强劲。
It ranked No. 5 on Forbes ’s new Best Brands for Customer Service list, and took top marks under the discount supermarket category in a Newsweek /Statista ranking released this summer.
它在福布斯新推出的最佳客户服务品牌排行榜上排名第五，并在今年夏天发布的新闻周刊/Statista排名中在折扣超市类别中获得最高分。
In June, it surprise-dropped a new product: a $3.99 mini insulated cooler tote.
6 月份，它意外推出了一款新产品：售价 3.99 美元的迷你保温冷藏手提包。
The crowds descended again.
人群再次降临。
Many stores once again sold out in minutes, drawing a new round of positive buzz .
许多商店在几分钟之内再次售空，引发了新一轮的积极热议。
And the original canvas totes that flew off shelves in March were back by popular demand in October, commanding a fresh round of favorable coverage.
3 月份抢购一空的原创帆布手提包在 10 月份因大众需求而重新回归，赢得了新一轮的好评。
“Selling like hot cakes,” noted CNN, while Axios informed readers that they had arrived “just in time for beach season.”
CNN 指出，“卖得很热”，而 Axios 则告诉读者，他们的到来“正好赶上海滩季节”。
Trader Joe’s was founded by a Los Angeles entrepreneur named Joe Coulombe in 1967 to combat what he called the “homogenization” of the American diet.
Trader Joe's 由洛杉矶企业家 Joe Coulombe 于 1967 年创立，旨在对抗他所谓的美国饮食“同质化”现象。
In his 2021 memoir, Becoming Trader Joe , Coulombe wrote that most Americans’ diets had been “reduced to a common (low) denominator of Swanson TV Dinners, Minute Maid Orange Juice, Best Foods Mayonnaise, and Folgers coffee.” His core idea: Trader Joe’s would cater to “health food nuts” and differentiate itself by concentrating control on the supply side via private-labeling arrangements, where it could purchase high-quality items in bulk.
库隆布在 2021 年的回忆录《成为交易员乔》中写道，大多数美国人的饮食已“减少到斯旺森电视晚餐、美汁源橙汁、最佳食品蛋黄酱和福尔杰斯咖啡的共同（低）标准”。他的核心理念是：Trader Joe's 将迎合“健康食品坚果”的需求，并通过自有品牌安排集中控制供应方，从而可以批量购买高质量的商品，从而使自己脱颖而出。
The brand found its groove by cultivating an image as a thoughtful West Coast neighborhood grocer that sold idiosyncratic products, prioritized employee happiness and honest ingredients, and even back then, cared about solving “the problem of the environment.”
该品牌通过塑造一个有思想的西海岸邻里杂货店的形象找到了自己的最佳状态，该杂货店销售独特的产品，优先考虑员工的幸福和诚实的成分，甚至在当时就关心解决“环境问题”。
Coulombe also spied untapped potential in the expanding culinary horizons of Americans in that era.
库隆布还发现了那个时代美国人不断扩大的烹饪视野中尚未开发的潜力。
He wanted the stores to appeal to aspiring international travelers (even if that “travel” was mostly limited to their own kitchens).
他希望这些商店能够吸引有抱负的国际旅行者（即使这种“旅行”主要限于他们自己的厨房）。
The branding and ever-present nautical theme was intended to reinforce this.
品牌和始终存在的航海主题旨在强化这一点。
“Trader” Coulombe was so enamored with the midcentury cocktail fad that had swept the U.S. that he picked a business name that directly referenced Trader Vic’s.
“Trader” Coulombe 非常迷恋上世纪中叶席卷美国的鸡尾酒风潮，以至于他选择了一个直接引用 Trader Vic's 的公司名称。
As a company mascot, Trader Joe would stand for the sophisticated traveler who, like its tiki-lounge bartender namesake, gathered “exotic” bounties abroad and brought them back home to share.
作为公司的吉祥物，Trader Joe 代表着成熟的旅行者，就像提基酒廊的同名调酒师一样，他在国外收集“异国情调”的赏金，然后带回国内分享。
In recent years, of course, the tiki identity has attracted criticism and widespread coverage for reducing Polynesian culture to simplistic stereotypes and ripping off the concepts these people invented without compensating them.
当然，近年来，提基身份引起了批评和广泛报道，因为它把波利尼西亚文化简化为简单化的刻板印象，并在没有补偿的情况下抄袭了这些人发明的概念。
To appeal to his target consumer, Coulombe believed that Trader Joe’s branded products needed to carry “individualized labels aimed at the overeducated.” This led to some tortured Eurocentric wordplay: Sir Isaac Newtons, Trader Darwin’s vitamins, Heisenberg’s Uncertain Blend coffee, Gainsborough’s Blue Boy blueberry syrup, and Disraeli & Gladstone English muffins.
为了吸引目标消费者，库隆布认为 Trader Joe's 的品牌产品需要带有“针对受过高等教育的人的个性化标签”。这导致了一些折磨人的以欧洲为中心的双关语：艾萨克·牛顿爵士、交易员达尔文的维生素、海森堡的不确定混合咖啡、盖恩斯伯勒的蓝男孩蓝莓糖浆以及迪斯雷利和格拉德斯通的英式松饼。
But for every type of Mexican food, the label said Trader José’s; for the Japanese items, it was Trader Joe San.
但对于每种类型的墨西哥食品，标签上都写着 Trader José's；对于日本商品，是商人 Joe San。
By the 2010s, this “playful” name genericizing could be found on most foreign products: Arabian Joe’s “Middle Eastern Flatbread,” Armenian Joe’s eggplant wraps, Trader Ming’s as a catchall Asian label for the Chinese orange chicken as well as the pad thai.
到了 2010 年代，这种“有趣”的通用名称可以在大多数外国产品上找到：Arabian Joe 的“中东扁面包”、Armenian Joe 的茄子卷、Trader Ming’s 作为中国橙鸡和泰式炒河粉的亚洲标签。
In 2020, an online petition calling these names racist sparked a PR debacle.
2020 年，一份称这些名字为种族主义者的在线请愿书引发了一场公关灾难。
Trader Joe’s responded by promising “changes [would] be made” if those products stopped “resonating well,” and today the exoticized names have largely vanished.
Trader Joe’s 的回应是，如果这些产品不再“引起良好共鸣”，“将会做出改变”，而如今，这些充满异国情调的名字已经基本上消失了。
What is striking in hindsight is how many consumers couldn’t have cared less, even as the vocal minority successfully demanded change.
事后看来，令人震惊的是，尽管少数直言不讳的人成功地要求改变，但仍有多少消费者对此毫不在意。
In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 petition, nearly 80% of respondents to a Los Angeles Times poll said the controversy “would not change their feelings about Trader Joe’s or its products.”
2020 年请愿书发出后不久，《洛杉矶时报》民意调查中近 80% 的受访者表示，这场争议“不会改变他们对 Trader Joe's 或其产品的感受”。
In April this year, a group of food entrepreneurs who’d drawn followings for their own international snacks—products that could easily be mistaken for Trader Joe’s own—accused the company of intellectual property theft.
今年 4 月，一群食品企业家指责该公司盗窃知识产权，他们的国际零食很容易被误认为是 Trader Joe 自己的产品，从而吸引了众多追随者。
Stories about this being a pattern have circulated for years in isolation, but the food magazine Taste ran an exposé where half a dozen producers claimed the brand used shadowy tactics to discuss partnering with them, oftentimes for long enough to solicit samples or get them to say which ingredients could be substituted to bring down the price point—only to then bail and release a cheaper Trader Joe’s-branded dupe.
关于这种模式的故事已经孤立地流传了很多年，但食品杂志 Taste 进行了一次曝光，其中有六家生产商声称该品牌使用了秘密策略来与他们讨论合作，通常会花很长时间来征求样品或让他们说出可以替代哪些成分来降低价格——然后才放弃并推出更便宜的 Trader Joe’s 品牌的骗局。
“Trader Joe’s is like the food version of Zara or Shein,” popular chili crisp maker Fly by Jing ’s founder Jing Gao told Taste after her encounter with the company.
“Trader Joe's 就像食品版的 Zara 或 Shein，”广受欢迎的辣椒脆片制造商 Fly by Jing 的创始人高靖在接触到这家公司后告诉 Taste。
“With food, just like with fashion, whenever something is cheap, somewhere along the line, someone is being taken advantage of.”
“食物就像时尚一样，只要有便宜的东西，在生产过程中的某个地方，就会有人被利用。”
A point of pride among some of Trader Joe’s most committed fans is the idea that patronizing the stores is good for the environment.
Trader Joe's 的一些最忠实粉丝感到自豪的一点是，光顾商店有利于环境。
Coulombe claimed in his book that Trader Joe’s embodied his “commitment to environmentalism,” citing the company’s embrace of energy-efficient diesel trucks and a store concept (which never came to fruition) known as the Trader Joe’s Biosphere.
库隆在他的书中声称，Trader Joe’s 体现了他“对环保主义的承诺”，并列举了该公司对节能柴油卡车的拥护以及被称为 Trader Joe’s 生物圈的商店概念（从未实现）。
In 1977, Trader Joe’s became the first major grocer to offer reusable bags.
1977 年，Trader Joe's 成为第一家提供可重复使用袋的大型杂货店。
Yet more recently, Trader Joe’s has repeatedly run afoul of federal and state climate regulations while refusing consumers’ and advocacy groups’ entreaties to be more transparent.
然而最近，Trader Joe's 多次违反联邦和州气候法规，同时拒绝消费者和倡导团体提高透明度的请求。
Pressure from the public and industry watchdog groups over the past five years has been relentless.
过去五年来，来自公众和行业监管团体的压力一直持续不断。
In 2019, the company was placed in the bottommost tier of the Center for Biological Diversity’s widely cited report grading grocery industry food waste.
2019年，该公司在生物多样性中心广泛引用的食品杂货行业食物垃圾分级报告中被列为最底层。
That same year, more than 100,000 people signed a viral petition titled simply “ Reduce Plastic Packaging!
同年，超过 10 万人签署了一份病毒式请愿书，标题为“减少塑料包装！”
” In 2020, the brand received a -7.62 on the Humane Society’s animal welfare ranking scorecard after a yearlong audit, got a D on Friends of the Earth’s Bee-Friendly Retailer Scorecard , and came in second to last on Green America’s Chocolate Scorecard ranking how well companies address child labor in the cocoa industry and commit to reducing deforestation.
2020 年，经过一年的审核，该品牌在人道协会的动物福利排名记分卡上获得了 -7.62，在地球之友的蜜蜂友好零售商记分卡上获得了 D，并在绿色美国的巧克力记分卡上排名倒数第二，该排名显示了公司在可可行业解决童工问题和致力于减少森林砍伐的程度。
Since then, it has received a 0 out of 1,700 on every Cornucopia Institute Organic Egg Scorecard , an F in antibiotics use in 2022 from a respected coalition of public health advocates (Consumer Reports, the Center for Food Safety, National Resources Defense Council, and U.S. Public Interest Research Groups), and the lowest scores possible on two different benchmarks in 2024—four 0s out of 100 on Toxic-Free Future’s safe packaging report , and two 0s out of 100 on the Climate-Friendly Supermarkets Scorecard ranking HFCs in refrigerant use, the industry’s biggest source of emissions.
从那时起，它在聚宝盆研究所有机鸡蛋评分卡上获得了 0 分（满分 1,700 分），受人尊敬的公共卫生倡导者联盟（《消费者报告》、食品安全中心、国家资源保护委员会和美国公共利益研究小组）在 2022 年抗生素使用方面获得了 F 分，并在 2024 年在两个不同的基准上获得了最低分数——无毒产品获得了满分 100 分的四个 0未来的安全包装报告，以及气候友好型超市记分卡上的 100 个 0 中的两个 0，将制冷剂使用中的氢氟碳化合物列为该行业最大的排放源。
Trader Joe’s has a long history with worrisome refrigerant emissions.
Trader Joe’s 长期以来一直存在令人担忧的制冷剂排放问题。
From 2007 to 2016, the company battled with the EPA on the use of dangerous HCFCs, a class of coolants even more harmful than HFCs.
从 2007 年到 2016 年，该公司与 EPA 就使用危险的 HCFC 进行了斗争，HCFC 是一类比 HFC 危害更大的冷却剂。
The agency declared that 453 of Trader Joe’s 461 stores—98%—were violating the Clean Air Act, which led the Justice Department to bring charges.
该机构宣布 Trader Joe's 461 家商店中有 453 家（98%）违反了《清洁空气法》，这导致司法部提出指控。
Trader Joe’s did not admit to any wrongdoing, but in 2016 it agreed to spend $2 million on corrective actions that included fixing its coolant leaks and opening a preset number of “Advanced Refrigeration Stores” by 2019 that replaced the old chemicals with less harmful refrigerants like CO2.
Trader Joe's 没有承认有任何不当行为，但在 2016 年，它同意斥资 200 万美元采取纠正措施，包括修复冷却剂泄漏问题，以及在 2019 年之前开设预设数量的“高级制冷商店”，用二氧化碳等危害较小的制冷剂取代旧化学品。
In 2020, Trader Joe’s was negotiating another settlement , this time over hazardous waste that 27 district attorneys and the city attorneys of Los Angeles and San Diego said it had disposed of improperly in California.
2020 年，Trader Joe’s 正在就另一项和解进行谈判，这次是针对危险废物，27 名地区检察官以及洛杉矶和圣地亚哥市检察官表示，该公司在加州处置不当。
This group, representing almost half the state, accused it of dumping toxic waste in the trash—at stores as well as its half-million-square-foot distribution centers—and submitting incomplete records to regulators.
该组织代表了几乎一半的州，指责该公司将有毒废物倾倒在商店及其50万平方英尺的配送中心的垃圾桶中，并向监管机构提交了不完整的记录。
Trader Joe’s paid $595,000 in penalties and fees, and consented to five years of outside audits of its waste-management practices.
Trader Joe’s 支付了 595,000 美元的罚款和费用，并同意对其废物管理实践进行为期五年的外部审计。
Neither legal drama made headlines.
这两部法律剧都没有成为头条新闻。
What did, in several national outlets, was a new “sustainability plan” that Trader Joe’s announced on the heels of the popular 2019 plastic reduction petition, drawing applause from longtime critics like Greenpeace for stating it would remove a million pounds of plastic within the year.
继 2019 年广受欢迎的减塑请愿书之后，Trader Joe’s 在多家全国性媒体上宣布了一项新的“可持续发展计划”，该计划赢得了绿色和平组织等长期批评者的掌声，因为该计划表示将在一年内消除 100 万磅塑料。
One million pounds of plastic per year sounds like a lot.
每年一百万磅塑料听起来很多。
In practice, it meant that each of Trader Joe’s 500-plus locations was committing to eliminate the amount of plastic waste produced annually by two to three U.S. households.
实际上，这意味着 Trader Joe's 500 多家门店中的每一家都承诺消除两到三个美国家庭每年产生的塑料垃圾。
The company didn’t lay out the specific steps it was taking to achieve this goal, just like it never publishes corporate social responsibility reports—a routine practice among all major competitors—for the sake of transparency.
该公司没有列出实现这一目标的具体步骤，就像它从不发布企业社会责任报告一样——这是所有主要竞争对手的惯例——为了透明起见。
But a special episode of the Inside Trader Joe’s podcast announced that the company planned to eliminate the styrofoam that held pieces of fresh produce, plastic film lining the brand’s greeting cards, and wrappers used to enclose individual tea bags.
但 Inside Trader Joe 播客的一期特别节目宣布，该公司计划取消用于存放新鲜农产品的聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料、品牌贺卡内衬的塑料薄膜以及用于封装单个茶袋的包装纸。
The company also shared “really cool” news that it was switching to less harmful CO2-based refrigerator coolants.
该公司还分享了“非常酷”的消息，即它正在改用危害较小的二氧化碳冰箱冷却剂。
(There was no mention on the podcast that the switch was initially court ordered.)
（播客中没有提到这一转变最初是法院下令的。）
On sustainability claims, most grocers worry about being accused of massaging their numbers to appear more sustainable.
在可持续发展方面，大多数杂货商担心被指控夸大其数字以显得更具可持续性。
Trader Joe’s isn’t in much danger of that.
Trader Joe's 并没有面临太大的危险。
By many metrics, it could hardly perform worse.
从许多指标来看，它的表现几乎不可能更差。
Not only do environmental scorecards routinely rank it among the worst of its peers—it reflexively shields the data that could refute those awful scores.
环境记分卡不仅经常将其列为同类中最差的，而且还本能地屏蔽了可能反驳这些糟糕分数的数据。
Trader Joe’s eco-friendly image emerges like a greenwashed Mandela effect, where a piece of misinformation somehow gets repeated as fact by enough people that everybody starts accepting it as true.
Trader Joe 的环保形象就像被粉饰的曼德拉效应一样，一条错误信息以某种方式被足够多的人重复为事实，以至于每个人都开始接受它是真实的。
“There remains a vague sense—vibes mostly—that Trader Joe’s is on the right side of things,” says Jennifer Molidor, coauthor of the Center for Biological Diversity’s report.
生物多样性中心报告的合著者珍妮弗·莫利多 (Jennifer Molidor) 表示：“人们仍然有一种模糊的感觉——主要是感觉——Trader Joe’s 是站在正确的一边。”
“Perhaps it is the low prices.” But once you put the vibes aside, the truth is more complicated.
“也许是因为价格低廉。”但一旦你抛开这些情绪，事实就会变得更加复杂。
In our next two stories, we take a close look at what’s behind Trader Joe’s record number of food recalls and examine a spate of allegations of sexual harassment and safety violations.
在接下来的两个故事中，我们将仔细研究 Trader Joe 创纪录数量的食品召回背后的原因，并审查一系列性骚扰和安全违规指控。
Clint Rainey is a Fast Company contributor based in New York who reports on business, often food brands.
克林特·雷尼 (Clint Rainey) 是《快公司》驻纽约的撰稿人，负责报道商业（通常是食品品牌）。
He has covered the anti-ESG movement , rumors of a Big Meat psyop against plant-based proteins , Chick-fil-A's quest to walk the narrow path to growth , as well as Starbucks's pivot from a progressive brand — into one that's far more Chinese .
他报道了反 ESG 运动、大型肉类公司针对植物蛋白进行心理调查的传言、福来鸡 (Chick-fil-A) 寻求走上一条狭窄的增长道路，以及星巴克从一个进步品牌转向一个更加中国化的品牌。
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