Is Trader Joe’s Sustainable or is it Greenwashing?
This article was last updated May 2024.
Is Trader Joe’s sustainable or is it greenwashing?
Welcome to “Sustainable or Greenwashing” series where I’m sharing if brands and products are actually what they say they are.
Is Trader Joe’s sustainable or is it greenwashing? 🥦
Trader Joe’s was founded in 1967 as a grocer that offered affordable products not found in traditional convenience and grocery stores. 🛒
Trader joes is notoriously secretive with their sourcing so researching this was difficult, but I was able to find a few things you might find interesting. Trader Joes is Fair Trade certified.
They also have a "Neighborhood Shares Program", where they donate 100% of the unsold products to local food recovery organizations, & they said in 2021, 99.5% of all products that were sold in stores were donated to food recovery partners, or composted.
Also in 2021, they shifted away from plastic packaging and moved to more paper packaging such as removing plastic packaging from produce and switching plastic produce clamshells for paper. They’ve also introduced compostable produce bags. 🛍
So is Trader Joe’s sustainable or is it greenwashing?
Overall, it’s tough to say as a whole since I can’t deep dive into each manufacturer for each product, BUT I would say Trader Joe’s does do a great job of making you FEEL like your shopping local, when you’re not really. They do have SOME admirable initiatives, like the paper bags and reasonable pricing on organic products, but overall it’s not as earthy as you would think it to be so I’m calling a little bit of Greenwashing. 🤔
NOW, I dont think you have to suddenly stop shopping Trader Joe’s in order to be an environmentalist, but it’s interesting to note what sort of changes they could make to be more eco consious, and to be aware of it while you’re shopping. Obviously no big chain store is going to be perfect - but what do you think? 🌎
XOXO,
Krys
SOURCES:
https://brightly.eco/blog/most-sustainable-chain-stores-ranking
