Sunday, April 5, 2015

A special note on Trader Joe's Gourmet Jelly Beans

Trader Joe's rather famously has iron-clad secrecy agreements with its product suppliers. Nobody is supposed to know who makes the stuff.

Yesterday I discovered an unusual breach in this wall of secrecy. Looking in on the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter, I noticed a series of tweets like this:



Clicking on the tweeter's timeline, I found that he sends out a spate of these tweets every once in a while. He seems to have a peculiarly keen interest in promoting this specific TJ's product. Why might that be?

Well, click on his profile, and you find this:



Ireland? Didn't I remember seeing that TJ's jelly beans carry a label saying that they are made in Ireland?

Why yes--yes, I did. Look in the lower left corner of this picture of the nutrition label, which I borrowed from the review of the jelly beans from the What's Good at Trader Joe's blog:



Furthermore, when I checked out the web page referred to in Mr. Cullen's Twitter profile, I found this:



Now, here's the front of the TJ's box as pictured in our review from last September:



You can see that every flavor in the TJ's box is listed among the 36 made by The Jelly Bean Factory, including such unusual ones as pomegranate, banana split, and strawberry smoothie.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, given this evidence, can there be any doubt about the identity of Trader Joe's jelly bean supplier?



5 comments:

  1. Store this one in the 21st Century time capsule: Social Media-based Jelly Bean Investigative Journalism!

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  2. I know this post is old. But I came here from google looking for this exact info. I'm obsessed with TJ's jelly beans and I've been trying to find their supplier forever!

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  3. "From a tiny little candy factory nestled in the Irish countryside..." states the packaging, as of September 2016. Not sure if Dublin is really considered countryside, or if The Jelly Bean Company could be considered a "tiny little candy factory," but they sure make good JBs...

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  4. Why don't you order some and find out for sure. (taste test?)

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  5. I believe they’re still made in Blanchardstown, in the county of a Dublin.

    ReplyDelete