We Spotted Trader Joe’s Labeled Produce in an Aldi Store … But It’s Not What You Think
Most people know that Aldi and Trader Joe’s have some distant connection. And they do. We’ve written about it extensively on our site, talking about the two Aldi companies, how Aldi and Trader Joe’s are related, and whether or not Aldi and Trader Joe’s sell the same products.
The answer to that last question is no. But that hasn’t stopped people from insisting that there is more to the connection between Aldi and TJs.
If you were anything like us, you might have done a double-take had you walked into our Aldi store recently and seen this:
Can’t quite see it? Here’s a closer look.
That’s right. In our neighborhood Aldi store, we went to our produce section and saw Trader Joe’s Organic Green Seedless Grapes on the shelf.
“I knew it!” someone will probably shout. “They are selling the same products!”
To them, I would say: slow down.
First off, let’s recap the relationship between Aldi and Trader Joe’s. There are technically two Aldi companies, which split off from one another in the 1960s. One of them is Aldi Nord. The other is Aldi Süd. Aldi Nord operates in northern Germany as well as places like France and Spain. Aldi Nord also owns Trader Joe’s, which TJ’s reps told us operates independently of Aldi Nord. Aldi Süd operates in southern Germany as well as English-speaking areas like England, Ireland, Australia, and — you guessed it — the United States.
That doesn’t mean Aldi US and Trader Joe’s are on friendly terms. In fact, while their parent companies do cooperate with each other in many areas, TJ’s is not part of that cooperation. Although Trader Joe’s products will sometimes appear on the shelves of its parent company back in Germany, Aldi Nord, Trader Joe’s house brands do not show up on Aldi Süd shelves. That includes Aldi US.
How, then does that square with us spotting Trader Joe’s-branded grapes in our friendly neighborhood Aldi?
The most likely answer is that it was a mistake.
Here’s how: some grocers use common sourcing and co-packaging companies for their products, especially produce. In other words, various competing grocers might use the same sourcing and packaging operations to get, say, their strawberries. The packagers will take the strawberries, put them in various packages with different labels, and then send them out to different grocers.
After all, it’s not like Aldi or Walmart run their own strawberry farms or have their own strawberry packers. They contract other companies to do that.
With different products going to different stores, there’s always a chance of a label mishap. In fact, this isn’t even the first recorded instance of this specific TJ’s product going to the wrong store. In 2021, a Redditor spotted these exact same grapes on the shelf of their Safeway store. A commenter on that thread said they also spotted the grapes at their local Food Lion.
You don’t have to search hard to find other TJ’s-labeled items get misdelivered, whether blackberries accidentally land at a Walmart nowhere near Trader Joe’s or TJ’s milk ends up at Target. You can find plenty of other misdelivered products from other brands, including in the comments of those posts. In the 2021 grapes Reddit post, for instance, one commenter who says they worked for Trader Joe’s said they once accidentally got Walmart’s Great Value milk, which they said the store had to donate because they couldn’t sell it.
Closing Thoughts:
Yes, we did see Trader Joe’s grapes in our Aldi. No, that doesn’t mean Aldi and Trader Joe’s are working together. What it does mean is that Aldi and TJ’s probably use a common co-packager for those grapes, and somehow the Aldi store got the TJ’s shipment. In other words, someone misdelivered the mail. It can and does happen in the industry from time to time.
If you happen to see another store’s product in your Aldi, just know it’s not because of collusion … but rather, because a lot of stores use a common supply network, especially for produce.
