UPDATE: The company responded to calls to change the packaging on its international products with the following statement:
"While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect— one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day," said Kenya Friend-Daniel, national director of public relations for Trader Joe's. "With this in mind, we made the decision several years ago to use only the Trader Joe's name on our products moving forward. Since then, we have been in the process of updating older labels and replacing any variations with the name Trader Joe's, and we will continue do so until we complete this important work.
"At this time, I don’t have an exact date but we expect to have the work completed very soon. Packaging for a number of the products has already been changed, but there’s a small number of products in which the packaging is still going through the process."
-----
As companies are hurriedly moving away from problematic depictions of race — from Aunt Jemima to the Washington NFL team — Trader Joe's is yet another brand being asked to change its packaging of international products through a petition.
The products in question are food items from various parts of the world that are re-branded under the Trader Joe's umbrella. But rather than the typical Trader Joe's name emblazoned on food items, oftentimes products are given offshoots of the name Joe. Instead, these items are dubbed "Trader Giotto's" or "Trader Ming's" or "Trader José" to refer to Italian, Chinese or Mexican products, respectively, among other ethnic-sounding names for products.
The petition asking the grocery chain to rename the products has said the various labels belie "a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes."
"The Trader Joe’s branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures — it presents 'Joe' as the default 'normal' and the other characters falling outside of it — they are 'Arabian Joe,' 'Trader José,' and 'Trader Joe San,' the petition states. "... The common thread between all of these transgressions is the perpetuation of exoticism, the goal of which is not to appreciate other cultures, but to further other and distance them from the perceived 'normal.'"
The petition goes on to point out that the history behind Trader Joe's is perhaps problematic in modern context, stating that the origins of the store's nautical theme (as published on the store's website) comes from the book "White Shadows in the South Seas," which the petition branded as racist. Furthermore, Disneyland's Jungle Trip ride — which is also mentioned on the store's website as founder Joe Coulombe's inspiration — was pointed out as receiving criticism "for romanticizing Western Imperialism and fetishizing non-Western peoples."
This isn't the first time the grocery store brand has come under fire for its labeling of international foods; in 2019, food website The Kitchn made note of the company's use of "authentic" on its labels, using it "almost exclusively in reference to Indian and Mexican dishes," the writer found. In contrast, European products weren't promoted as being "authentic," which the Kitchn pointed out. Its use of the word has a different context when singled out for use on Indian and Mexican products, given those countries' history of colonization by European countries, the writer stated.
"By using the word 'authentic' to single out these two countries, TJ’s is reinforcing some subtle yet truly important assumptions," the article reads. "What are those assumptions? To describe an entire nation’s food as either authentic or inauthentic is to reduce it to one singular conception of what that food can be while ignoring regional differences, class differences, and historical precedents."
Nylon Magazine also approached the labeling issue in its 2019 article, "Who is Trader Ming?"
"Though intended to be innocuously whimsical, [the international labels] lend to a variety of interpretations, the first being that there's something inherently comical about ethnic names: 'Ming' and 'José' are somehow witty and funny while 'Joe' is the unembellished neutral," Nylon points out.
SFGATE reached out to Trader Joe's for comment but didn't hear back in time for publishing. For its part, however, the store brand said in a statement to Nylon Magazine that it had already decided to use only the Trader Joe's name on newly introduced products and that "these designations do not appear on any new products we have introduced in the past two years, and as we make our way through label updates on older products, we will change any preexisting variations to Trader Joe's. While these names had been considered a lighthearted designation of their cuisine, we recognize they may have been inconsistent with the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day."
Despite this, it seems that a number of the ethnic-specific labels still remain on shelves in 2020, judging by local Trader Joe's aisles and this latest petition.
SFGATE will update this article should we hear back with comment from Trader Joe's.
"While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect— one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day," said Kenya Friend-Daniel, national director of public relations for Trader Joe's. "With this in mind, we made the decision several years ago to use only the Trader Joe's name on our products moving forward. Since then, we have been in the process of updating older labels and replacing any variations with the name Trader Joe's, and we will continue do so until we complete this important work.
"At this time, I don’t have an exact date but we expect to have the work completed very soon. Packaging for a number of the products has already been changed, but there’s a small number of products in which the packaging is still going through the process."
-----
As companies are hurriedly moving away from problematic depictions of race — from Aunt Jemima to the Washington NFL team — Trader Joe's is yet another brand being asked to change its packaging of international products through a petition.
The products in question are food items from various parts of the world that are re-branded under the Trader Joe's umbrella. But rather than the typical Trader Joe's name emblazoned on food items, oftentimes products are given offshoots of the name Joe. Instead, these items are dubbed "Trader Giotto's" or "Trader Ming's" or "Trader José" to refer to Italian, Chinese or Mexican products, respectively, among other ethnic-sounding names for products.
The petition asking the grocery chain to rename the products has said the various labels belie "a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes."
"The Trader Joe’s branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures — it presents 'Joe' as the default 'normal' and the other characters falling outside of it — they are 'Arabian Joe,' 'Trader José,' and 'Trader Joe San,' the petition states. "... The common thread between all of these transgressions is the perpetuation of exoticism, the goal of which is not to appreciate other cultures, but to further other and distance them from the perceived 'normal.'"
The petition goes on to point out that the history behind Trader Joe's is perhaps problematic in modern context, stating that the origins of the store's nautical theme (as published on the store's website) comes from the book "White Shadows in the South Seas," which the petition branded as racist. Furthermore, Disneyland's Jungle Trip ride — which is also mentioned on the store's website as founder Joe Coulombe's inspiration — was pointed out as receiving criticism "for romanticizing Western Imperialism and fetishizing non-Western peoples."
This isn't the first time the grocery store brand has come under fire for its labeling of international foods; in 2019, food website The Kitchn made note of the company's use of "authentic" on its labels, using it "almost exclusively in reference to Indian and Mexican dishes," the writer found. In contrast, European products weren't promoted as being "authentic," which the Kitchn pointed out. Its use of the word has a different context when singled out for use on Indian and Mexican products, given those countries' history of colonization by European countries, the writer stated.
"By using the word 'authentic' to single out these two countries, TJ’s is reinforcing some subtle yet truly important assumptions," the article reads. "What are those assumptions? To describe an entire nation’s food as either authentic or inauthentic is to reduce it to one singular conception of what that food can be while ignoring regional differences, class differences, and historical precedents."
Nylon Magazine also approached the labeling issue in its 2019 article, "Who is Trader Ming?"
"Though intended to be innocuously whimsical, [the international labels] lend to a variety of interpretations, the first being that there's something inherently comical about ethnic names: 'Ming' and 'José' are somehow witty and funny while 'Joe' is the unembellished neutral," Nylon points out.
SFGATE reached out to Trader Joe's for comment but didn't hear back in time for publishing. For its part, however, the store brand said in a statement to Nylon Magazine that it had already decided to use only the Trader Joe's name on newly introduced products and that "these designations do not appear on any new products we have introduced in the past two years, and as we make our way through label updates on older products, we will change any preexisting variations to Trader Joe's. While these names had been considered a lighthearted designation of their cuisine, we recognize they may have been inconsistent with the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day."
Despite this, it seems that a number of the ethnic-specific labels still remain on shelves in 2020, judging by local Trader Joe's aisles and this latest petition.
SFGATE will update this article should we hear back with comment from Trader Joe's.
