Trader Joe's Organic Butter

It's Day 2 of Dairy Week: 



I have held off for a long time on posting about a few dairy products from Trader Joe's--specifically butter, milk, and eggs--because I haven't known what to say about them. I don't know anybody who can reliably tell the difference between brands.

But the other day it occurred to me that I could at least do some comparison price shopping to see how TJ's fares against its competition. So that's what this and the next two posts will be about. Today butter, tomorrow milk, then eggs.

I've chosen to focus on the organic versions of each. I'm not generally a fetishist about organics. However, I do believe strongly that antibiotic overuse and resistance is a huge looming problem, and that one of the places we can most easily cut use is in the raising of farm animals. The organic designation means that the animals raised for slaughter or for their milk or eggs are not treated with antibiotics. I think that's worth paying extra for.

The stores: I did my shopping where I live, in Asheville, North Carolina. The prices reflect what I found over the course of two weeks in April-May, 2015. Where there was a discounted price for using a store's loyalty card, that's what I wrote down, since I and, I think, most other shoppers use those programs. Ingles is the regionally dominant grocery store chain. Harris Teeter is a more upscale chain, which just recently put a store in town--right next to the TJ's, in fact. Sav-Mor is a discount grocer. You probably know all you need to know about Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. Earth Fare and Fresh Market are growing competitors to the latter. Publix opened its first Asheville store right while I was collecting this information, and got added at the last minute.

Here's what I found for 1 pound of organic butter, salted, in four quarters:

Trader Joe's          $5.29

Ingles                    $6.48 (Horizon Organic)

Sav-Mor Foods     not available

Harris Teeter         not available (very surprising)

Fresh Market         $6.38 (Horizon Organic)

Whole Foods         $6.69 (Organic Valley)
                               $4.99 (Whole Foods 365)

Wal-Mart               $5.98 (Horizon Organic)

Earth Fare              $4.87 (Horizon)
                               $5.29 (Organic Valley)
                               $3.98 (Earth Fare)

Publix                     $8.29 (!) (Horizon Organic)
                               $6.49 (Publix)


Conclusion: Trader Joe's organic butter is at about the mid-point of the price range. Earth Fare's store brand is the big bargain.

Trader Joe's Raw Milk Le Gruyere Switzerland Cheese

We're doing another themed week: DAIRY WEEK! Here's the Day 1 entry: 



I don't think I've ever had straight Gruyere cheese before. But Trader Joe's cheddar/Gruyere melange is my favorite cheese of all time, so it's no surprise that I like the Gruyere all by itself, too. Distinct, mild flavor, easy to slice, doesn't crumble. It's just first-rate on all counts. I think it's still a notch behind the melange, but it's on my list of favorite cheeses.

Will I buy it again? 

Eagerly.

Roundup

This is the weekly compilation of news and other items related to Trader Joe's.



My love-hate relationship with Trader Joe's 

Summer snack using Trader Joe's ingredients 

Tips for clean and cheap shopping at Trader Joe's 

How to buy cheese from Trader Joe's 

A sushi chef reviews cheap sushi (Spoiler: Trader Joe's is the worst of the bunch, 0 stars)

When at Trader Joe's, bag your groceries! 

Episode 3 of the "Let's Talk TJ's" podcast, on the worst items at Trader Joe's 

The $30 Trader Joe's date night 

Favorite finds at Trader Joe's

8 healthy Trader Joe's products that will change your life 

Good cheap wine from Trader Joe's 

Review of TJ's Paneer Masala Naan 

How to grill pizza with Trader Joe's ingredients 



Best tweets of the week:

#1:

#2:

#3:

#4:

#5:

#6:

Here's this week's YouTube video from "Trader Joe":





And finally, in lieu of a cute cat in a Trader Joe's grocery bag, I give you a cute cat wanting TJ's sriracha bacon jerky:

Trader Joe's Organic Ketchup

On one level, ketchup is ketchup. If I'm not paying attention, I can pour some on a burger and not care much what the label on the container says.

But when I do pay attention, I notice substantial differences, primarily in the sweetness and saltiness. And that leads me to have strong opinions. All of my adult life, my favorite has been Del Monte, though it's the hardest of the national brands to find in stores. Hunt's is my runner-up, with the ubiquitous Heinz lagging far behind.

Well, all that is now history. Trader Joe's version is, I think, better than them all. It's not so astounding or revelatory that I can make it a Top Ten item, but it's exactly right--thick and rich in tomato taste. It's quite sweet (which I like) without being over the top.

So another tiny lifetime habit changes, and this becomes what I will buy from now on.

Will I buy it again? 

Didn't you hear what I just said?

Trader Joe's cherry juice

I saw something in the Fearless Flyer about cherry juice, and decided that I should try it. But when I got to the store, I noticed that there were two different products. So what's one to do? Comparison test, of course!

Predictably, the "not from concentrate" version is more expensive than the "from concentrate" version--$4.99 versus $3.99. (Let's call these "NFC" and "FC" for short.) Encouragingly, neither label shows the products being loaded up with apple and grape juices, like most of the TJ's juice products. The FC label lists water and cherry juice concentrate--nothing more. The NFC label is even simpler: "Juice from ripe, whole red tart cherries."

Both bottles are 32 ounces, and the serving size for nutritional labeling purposes is 8 ounces for each. But Nina noticed that the carbohydrate and sugar content is significantly different. The NFC has 31g of carbs, of which 29 are from sugars, 0 from dietary fiber. The FC has 36g of carbs, of which 26 are from sugars and 1 from dietary fiber. I don't understand why any of these values would be different between the two versions. The NFC version also has more than four times as much sodium, a difference which also puzzles me.

Nina set up a blind taste test for me to see if I could identify which was which. I guessed wrong. In retrospect, I think I created a mental shortcut, without explicitly realizing it, that identified "better" as "NFC," based on our experience with TJ's orange juices.

I have now finished off both bottles, and my preference for the FC version remains clear and strong. It's much easier to enjoy. But it's not merely a matter of one being "more so" than the other. Rather, they're so different in their basic taste that Nina and I both suspected that they are made from completely different varieties of cherries.

The Fearless Flyer informs us:

Our 100% Cherry Juice, in the curvy bottle, is a blend of tart, sour, and sweet cherry juices from varieties such as Prunus Cerasus (tart), Prunus Acida (tart), Prunus Fructicosa (sour), and Prunus Avium (sweet). The different cherry varieties combine to make a juice that's easy to drink and loaded with antioxidants. With all this going for it, 100% Cherry Juice is a perennial favorite in our stores.

Trader Joe's 100% Cherry Juice comes to us from the Caucasus Mountains/Black Sea region of Georgia - the country that lies at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, not the state that lies in the heart of the southeastern United States. This area is home to some of the world's finest cherries - they're generally referred to as "sour" or "tart". We find the juice significantly sweeter than our Red Tart Cherry Juice. Unlike some cherry juices, this is a very easy juice to drink, with or without mixers. 

So the NFC is indeed derived from a different mix of cherry varieties. 

Regardless of the reason, I preferred its taste, it's cheaper, and it has less cloudy sediment settling down to the bottom of the glass. Therefore, I have no difficulty picking a winner here--and it's exactly the opposite of what I predicted going in. 

Will I buy it again? 

FC, yes. NFC, no. 

Nina's View

The not-from-concentrate 100% Red Tart tastes like an actual cherry, a specific cherry. It has that slightly earthy back-of-the-tongue furriness you get from eating a tart, fresh cherry. I would be very surprised if this was a blend of multiple types of cherry. It tastes singular. I liked it a lot.

The from-concentrate is orders of magnitude sweeter and more generic. I was very surprised to see more carbs from sugar in the NFC. It makes zero sense to me. It's extremely drinkable and I have no problem understanding why Bob prefers it. 

Trader Joe's Black Bean & Jack Cheese Burrito In A Flour Tortilla

I have had three of these in fairly rapid succession--over the course of maybe ten days. It's safe to conclude that I like them. They're much better than the frozen ones reviewed yesterday.

As is typical, you get better results heating them in an oven than in a microwave, but if you're in a hurry, zapping works OK.

At $2.99, they're much cheaper than going to a burrito place for lunch. Of course they'll never be as good as that. And being refrigerated rather than frozen means that you have a sharply limited window for consuming it once purchased.

But for a store-bought, mass-produced burrito, it's pretty darn good.

Will I buy it again? 

The "three in ten days" bit back in the first sentence should give you the answer to that.

Trader Joe's Bean & Rice Burrito

I had one of these for my lunch on Monday, and liked it so much that I immediately cooked and ate the second one. Though a little over-full from that, I was still liking them enough that on Tuesday I bought another pair of them, which I served for dinner with Nina on Wednesday.

No frozen burrito will ever be as good as the ones made by the better burrito places, but I think these are the best frozen burritos I've ever had.

The beans, rice, cheese, and sauce inside are in just the proportions I like, and the degree of heat is exactly what I would build in if I were making them myself. Which is to say, the makers have neither been heavy-handed with the hot sauce in order to compensate for lack of flavor in the basic ingredients, nor have they beat the things silly with the bland stick. The latter has been a problem with several of the other TJ's frozen Mexican entrees I've tried.

The heating instructions changed in the time (a couple of months) between when I purchased the two packages. With the first, it was just 25 minutes in the oven (though I found that they needed a little more than that). Now it's a more complicated, three-step process. I'm guessing that this is because they had complaints about the outside getting too dried out, which was my impression on first eating. But it didn't bother me enough to adopt the more complicated reheating plan for the new package. I suspect they would come out with a somewhat moister wrap, more like a freshly steamed tortilla. I'll probably try the new-and-improved method for my third go-around.

Will I buy it again? 

Already on the shopping list for my next TJ's trip.

Nina's View

Once again, Bob and I are gazing into opposite ends of a telescope. He's all zoomed in and I'm all zoomed out. 

I am at a complete loss to understand why Bob likes these. The tortilla is dry and tasteless. The filling is an indeterminate brown mush of no particular flavor with some bits and pieces of other uninterestingness in it. There's a vague taste of heat, but no discrete or lively flavors of any sort. To be properly edible, they would at least need some kind of sauce, salsa, or cheese. And even then: I could open a couple of cans, chop a vegetable or two, wrap in store-bought tortillas and in 5 minutes I'd have something overwhelmingly superior to this.

In case the previous sentences are unclear: I do not like these burritos AT ALL. I also think the concept of a frozen burrito is idiotic. I am going to have to make Bob a burrito or six just on principle.