Huggle Me Timbers

“Just…everything…everything needs to go away.”

[via my friend Kaitlin]

marquisdesod:

Thanks to Caitlin “Gypsum Cobby” Obyrne for this one.

My personal favorite quote:

Kevin Kelley, whose consulting firm Shook Kelley has researched Trader Joe’s for its competitors, jokes that the typical shopper is the “Volvo-driving professor who could be CEO of a Fortune 100 company if he could get over his capitalist angst.”

I have been thinking a lot about Trader Joes’ business model since I started working at Mom’s.  I can’t argue with a lot of the statements this article makes about TJs’ wide appeal, but I think the benefit of working at a real neighborhood specialty food store is that we are able to provide a great standard of service to people who are willing to question the low cost of organic lemons.  Mom’s maintains the holistic model of which Trader Joe’s customers are only skimming the surface.  For instance, not only do we sell organic food, but our power is 100% offset by wind power credits, we compost just about everything we can, and we sell/use as little plastic as possible (even though this means I get many snide remarks from customers looking for bottled water).  However, Mom’s does also sell Stacy’s pita chips (apparently a PepsiCo product… too bad… I really liked those; but even PepsiCo is getting behind the anti-obesity movement these days).

Long story short, I can’t argue that Trader Joe’s has a brilliant business model, but I’m not sure that any true Foodie should make it their primary grocer. 

I mean, it’s “O’Byrne”, but you should read this.

Current research suggests that, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness. (Academics are already in broad agreement that there is a strong correlation between the quality of people’s relationships and their happiness; hence, anything that promotes stronger social bonds has a good chance of making us feel all warm and fuzzy.)