Unfortunately Trader Joe’s Traditional CARNITAS (Mexican roasted pork) went Missing In Action not long ago. Now as we all know Trader Joe’s products can go MIA. Many eventually come back as stock comes in.
Then a reader here reported left a Comment that the Carnitas Discontinued. My heart sank as I have loved that product ever since I had first tried it years ago. Its just the best roast pork cooked in a certain way one could never do yourself. So yesterday when I was at Trader Joe’s I tried to investigate. I spoke with a manager at the Front Desk who looked up the Carnitas on the computer. She told me something interesting which I thought I would pass along as it reveals a little bit not just about Trader Joe’s products but their suppliers they work with.
She showed me the Product page for the Carnitas. It says “Not Orderable” – meaning they did not actually discontinue it – however stores can not order it. The product page explained why: “supplier went out of business“. Yikes!
The page adds that they looking for new supplier for the item. Hopefully they will find one, eventually. But unfortunately for the time being we can’t buy Carnitas anymore at Trader Joe’s. I for one am quite Bummed as I loved it. I could even came up with a hack to make Cha Siu with the Roasted Pork.
Anyway if you don’t see something on the shelf, ask the Front Desk if they could check it for you as thats always the best way I’ve found to get actual info.
Double Concentrated Tomato Paste, Ingredients: Tomatoes. Salt
For some time I mourned the loss at Trader Joe’s of their handy Italian TOMATO PASTE in a tube which they “discontinued” maybe a year or two back. At the time I asked the TJ’s Captain to look it up and he said it was not even on order and that he was pretty sure it was gone for good. Fortunately it magically appeared back on the shelves recently at my Trader Joe’s and for that I say, HOORAY! So did Trader Joe’s change their minds? Did they lose a supplier and could not find one for years? Who knows? In any case I’m just glad to see this as this is a product I used to buy all the time.
Sometimes you don’t need that whole little can of paste, so the great thing about the tubes of tomato paste – an essential kitchen item, people – is obvious. Say you just need 1 tablespoon of tomato paste for something. Now you don’t have to open a whole small can up. Then figure out what to do with the rest. With the tube one just squeezes out the tablespoon. The paste in the tube can last a few months in the fridge. Which is better than finding that half used up can of tomato paste in the back of the fridge which I forgot I had, which now looks bad so I throw it out.
$1.49 (which is half what the tomato paste in a tube costs at regular grocery stores)
BTW did you know that tomato paste is one food that is Pure Umami*?
GOOGLE:
*Tomato paste is a great source of umami flavor:
Umami-rich Tomatoes are naturally high in glutamates, which are chemicals that create umami, the savory depth of a food. Concentrating the flavor of tomatoes into tomato paste makes it a powerful umami ingredient.
Versatile – A small amount of tomato paste can add a lot of flavor to many dishes, including soups, sauces, stews, braises, and bread dough.
Easy to use – A tablespoon of tomato paste can have the same flavor as 100 fresh tomatoes.
Flavor develops with browning – Browning tomato paste in the skillet caramelizes the natural sugars in the tomatoes, which enhances the umami flavor and reduces acidity. To brown it, just add some tomato paste into oil or butter on med/low heat and gently stir for about 3 mins or so till it darkens in color.
Other ingredients that are high in umami include: Miso paste, Soy sauce, Aged cheeses, Potatoes, Dried mushrooms, Anchovies, and Fish sauce.
I discovered this link on Trader Joe’s website and just want to share it to make sure every one knows about how to contact them and voice your opinion.
Now of course who knows if it will have any effect? But if they get enough complaints and feedback about some product they got rid of, perhaps they might even reconsider. It may be worth a try, you have nothing to lose and at the very least you get to have your say.
As they say, one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar, so probably best to be a bit polite.
(Update Jan 2025: M.I.A. for some time. Are they Out of stock or possibly Discontinued?) March 2025L Well its official from Trader Joe’s. UNFORTUNATELY THIS PRODUCT WAS DISCONTINUED ) Too bad as these were really good!
Trade Joe’s has quite a few, cooked, ready to eat, chicken items in the refrigerated section. Some of those are chicken breasts that have been already sliced . These however are whole cooked boneless chicken breasts, plain and simple, ready to use how ever you like. “All Natural, Minimally Processed…”
So convenient when you don’t feel like cooking but want a fast, easy protein. My review of these is that these boneless breast are super tasty. They are as juicy as possible, as they have not already been cut up, plus they are sealed up with the cooking juices. These are of course super convenient to have in the fridge. They will last at least a week, maybe more. For longer term storage you can freeze them and leave them overnight in the fridge to defrost.
Of course you are paying a bit more here per pound for boneless breasts as naturally one pays for the convenience of having it prepped and cooked. However the taste and quality is quite high. I even am pretty sure too these have been cooked Sous Vide (more on this later) Inside the package are four vacuum sealed pouches containing one perfect looking 4 ounce boneless breasts of chicken like you can see here. They even have grill marks on them, meaning they got some time over a grill.
Some people look down on boneless chicken breast, and think of them as dry and flavorless, but I promise you the way this is cooked proves otherwise. These are perfectly juicy.
My hunch how they make these: I believe these are cooked two ways: First they grill the outside a tiny bit to get those attractive grill marks but then they vacuum seal the breasts and cook them Sous Vide.Naturally I am just guessing but these kinds of pouches look exactly like how sous vide food looks. I also say this especially at how perfect the cook is on these boneless breasts. These are perfectly cooked. Juicy, tender, flavorful. If you are in the food game, let us know in the Comments if you too think these are cooked sous vide.
I gave one of these to my neighbor to taste. She thought they were delicious and immediately said she would be sure to buy them the next time she goes to TJ’s.
“Fully Cooked” – To me this is cooked just perfectly a point. In French cooking “à point” means “exactly right” meaning being “ideally cooked, no more, no less”. These breasts are just cooked just like that. Not overcooked. They are plump and juicy and there is a bit of natural cooking juices in the pouch – which you should be sure to save! This little bit of juice/stock can go over the chicken.
I sliced up a breast and ate it right out of the package as again, these are “fully cooked”. The cook on this is what you might call “medium rare”. If you’re someone who says they like chicken breast cooked until its “well done” you may not find it . Trust me it is. Its Perfect and is done like this so you can reheat it as they state. I put the sliced breast meat on top of a salad and it was delicious. Especially with some Magnificsauce on top. The package states you can “Reheat” this by simmering the pouch in water (or microwaving it). They suggest “simmering for 10-12 minutes”. It comes cooked “a point” so honestly I wonder if simmering this for 12 minutes might ruin it by overcooking it. I would simmer for 5 minutes tops ! Maybe if this is actually sous vide, 12 minutes might be OK. But once again it is already fully cooked. Though “just cooked” in the center which is personally the way I make boneless breasts. Your call on this point.
So I found these breasts very good and very tasty. The downside is of course the price is $9.99 for 1 pound of chicken however of course you don’t have to lift a finger to cook or prep it. You are paying for the convenience of having it ready to use, plus lets face it in a nice deli that sells cooked boneless breasts I’m sure would pay that much a pound if not more for cooked boneless breasts of this quality: perfect.
So when you want a perfect breast of chicken all ready this is very convenient.
The nutrition label says one breast is 150 calories with a whopping 27 Grams Protein and only 4.5 gr of fat. Sounds pretty healthy, no?
This was a really good product but sadly Trader Joe’s stopped carrying them (was discontinued)! Unfortunately. Many people aren’t happy about that
For Archival Purposes…… the original post about these
“SAVE PAPER, REDUCE WASTE”
These cleaning cloths are strong and quite absorbent. We’ve tested these out in our kitchen and are finding them to be pretty useful. They seem to me a bit like those orange “Chamois” cloths one finds at the dollar store? The good ones that is. These Trader Joe’s viscose cloths are convenient to buy and are not out of line priced at $2.99 for two cloths in the package (though I wish they were a little bigger). We’re mainly using them for kitchen counters and the like. They do absorb a lot even when wet. You just wring them out till damp and they absorb a ton of liquid again. These are useful and “eco”, saving some paper towel usage. I would buy these again.
UPDATE – Everyone complains about these being DISCONTINUED! (Argh!!!) I haven’t tried these but Amazon has some kind of general cleaning cloths fairly cheap that might work for this usage : https://amzn.to/3DIHmJy
I came across these two links here recently and want to share them for the insight into Trader Joe’s and discontinued products. Now to we consumers, it may be “my favorite item” at Trader Joe’s. But to Trader Joe’s “its just business”. You may think of Trader Joe’s as a supermarket but it is not a “supermarket”. Think of them as a specialty food vendor. Compared to a regular supermarket, which may stock 40,000 items, an average Trader Joe’s store only stocks 4,000 items. So limited shelf space. If a item doesn’t sell enough Units, to the decision makers at Trader Joe’s, that is a found to be a “slow sales item”. These items will likely be discontinued and be replaced with some other product. We, the consumer have little or nothing to do with it, other than the sales numbers. Read the transcript below of the INSIDE TRADER JOE’S podcast to get insight into how they decide these things.
Its not happy news for us consumers. Unfortunate that’s the way it is. Pretty much “don’t take it personal, it’s just business”. This is why even when I love an item, I know in the back of my mind “don’t fall in love”… because it may dissapear one day. Or if I really like it, I may buy a few of them if they can last….
“What can you do if your favorite TJ’s item is discontinued? Honestly, there’s not much you can do to bring your favorite groceries back once they’re gone. However, if you want to talk about it, there’s the Trader Joe’s Discontinued 🙁 Facebook group (and yes, the sad face is part of the group’s name).”
Tara: Hey, Matt, what happened to the Peach Salsa? Matt: In case you missed it, Trader Joe’s Spicy, Smoky Peach Salsa, it was discontinued. Tara: Yeah, I noticed cuz it’s my favorite salsa of all time and now I can’t buy it. This is a good topic for another I-C-Y-M-I Edition of Inside Trader Joe’s. Matt: I-C-Y-M-I, in case you missed it. Tara: These mini-episodes give us an opportunity to address some of the questions our crew members hear from customers most often. Matt: And keep asking. The crew loves to answer questions. Matt: Thinking about getting rid of products, discontinuing products. More often than not, it’s not an indictment of the product itself. Tara: What gives? Matt: Well, you know, oftentimes we’ll use a phrase and we probably overly rely on it, slow sales. What does that really mean? What it means is that there weren’t enough customers interested in buying the Peach Salsa to have it continue to make sense. Because if you don’t have high volume or growing volume, the costs of producing and handling a slow selling product are such that it doesn’t make business sense for us. And if you think about how small our stores are, and on a relative basis, they’re smaller than most grocery stores. And how few products we have? On a comparative basis, we have a lot fewer products than other grocery stores. We just physically don’t have room to carry things that aren’t popular, as disappointing as that is to hear and experience. Tara: So there’s another piece of this, Matt, that I think is kind of important. And it’s what we don’t do to put products on our shelves. Matt: How so? Tara: So a lot of retailers work with the companies that make their products, the Consumer Packaged Goods Companies, to put products on shelves using something called slotting fees. So the Consumer Packaged Goods, the CPG Companies pay the retailer, the grocery store for shelf space. So even if a product doesn’t sell very well, and even if you see it in the store and it’s covered with dust, it’s not going anywhere until the Consumer Packaged Goods Company decides it doesn’t make sense to produce that product anymore. Matt: Ah, now I get it. It’s the classical play of making money anywhere other than with a customer buying something at the cash register. Tara: Right. And at Trader Joe’s, the only way we make money is when the customer buys something at the cash register. So apparently I didn’t buy enough Peach Salsa. But that means that that product hasn’t earned its place on our shelves. We’re not getting paid by the producer of that product to keep it on the shelves. And our business model says let’s develop something new that might sell better and make more customers happy. Matt: And that approach can feel and sound so cold-hearted, and yet it’s important that we maintain our objectivity about what really is or isn’t working, what really isn’t selling because ultimately customers do let us know if they like something or not. Tara: Yeah, and I’ll be honest, when I went to buy it that one day a few weeks ago, I was just so sad standing there in front of the salsa selection in the store. And then I thought, okay, I’ll try something new. The great thing about discontinued products is it almost always means there’s something new coming soon. You can always find new things on our shelves. A lot of our stores have like a new product section where they’ll highlight a whole bunch of things that have recently shown up in the stores. It’s kind of fun to try something new. Matt: So I see why I, and maybe this is the missing salsa edition, but if you’re looking for the Double Roasted Salsa, which was one of my favorites, which was sadly discontinued, you might consider trying the Guajillo Salsa, which I find to be a nice albeit slightly spicier replacement. Tara: And I also have taken to the Pineapple Salsa to replace the Peach Salsa if I’m in the mood for something that has a little sweetness to it. So, there are options. We, you know, we don’t have every product in the world, but we do have some good options. Matt: We work hard, the product development team, the tasting panel group, they work on things by tasting them. They think these things make sense. They think that they’re delicious. They think they’re worth customers’ time and attention. And if that doesn’t pan out in that way, well, we’ve gotta move on. Of course, there can be reasons other than slow sales. Um, if there are quality issues or that we determined that the value that we once had is no longer as strong. If we are facing different competitive pressures on a given product. And yet, overwhelmingly, the reason for things to be discontinued at Trader Joe’s is a lack of interest, slow sales. Tara: Yeah. Tara: I’m Tara Miller. Matt: And I’m Matt Sloan. Tara: In case you missed it. That’s why your favorite product might have been discontinued it. Thanks for listening.
Upset about a discontinued product? Why don’t you let Trader Joe’s know how you feel? I found the area on the TRADER JOES website that seems to let one do that (see link) Give them your feedback and who knows? Just maybe if enough people complain about something. Would they reconsider about a discontinued item IF they see there is enough potential demand? Now of course I have no idea if these will have any affect. Maybe it’s a waste of time. Still I wonder if there’s some number which might get someone at Corporate’s attention….. If they see 25 message probably nothing, but if they saw hundreds and hundred of complaints I wonder ….?
“Light nutty flavor that is great in oatmeal, smoothies, pancakes and waffles.”
RANT
Unfortunately Trader Joe’s discontinued their Whole Roasted Flax Seeds – a very good product, and replaced it with this: ORGANIC GROUND FLAXSEED MEAL. This is a bit of a bummer as I preferred to buy the whole flax seeds which I would grind myself. Not terribly hard to do. That way is was very fresh. Compared to flax seeds already ground up as in this product.
I ground the up with I a second coffee grinder, I use for grinding up things besides coffee up, like seeds and spices. So with those whole seeds (now gone) I would grind up the whole flax seeds myself. Which is ideal as they contain natural oils which are best fresh (flax seed oil) . I think Whole Foods might sell whole flax seeds?
For the time being, I got this new version that Trader Joe’s replaced that product with. I use flax seeds in a few ways, for mixing into my Kefir, and smoothies and or adding into baked goods or pancakes.
Sadly these pre-ground flax meal is not as good. The taste is off to me. I don’t know if they use Golden or Brown flax seeds. Just not as fresh for one things. I’m sure Trader Joe’s wanted to make it “easy” (as in, “what kind of customer is going to grind them themselves”?) Guess what, it’s doable and was preferable to me at least if you care about the flax meal being super fresh.
Refrigerate this after opening to keep as fresh as possible, maybe even keeping this in the freezer is best?
In short, that discontinued whole flax seed was a better product. Grinding them ourselves guaranteed freshness, which this does not. So another RANT!
One option might be to just buy whole flax seeds (AMAZON) These aren’t toasted but you could do that yourself pretty easily.
Ode to yet another discontinued Trader Joe’s product, a classic rant about an excellent TJ product, which they discontinued! Some people thought this was the best marinara sauce on the market. Many were bumbed to learn TJ’s Discontinued their favorite tomato sauce! So why am I writing about this now? Well the other day I happened to be clearing out my pantry and found I had a can of this Marinara way in the back. I opened it and tasted it and was pretty shocked to see how good it was. This marinara is, or should we say was, a terrific sauce. For one thing it’s not super smooth, it’s full of chunks of tomatoes like a homemade sauce you had put together. The current glass jars of Marinara sauce that Trader Joe’s replaced this with are smooth. I made a pasta dish using this Marinara and the dish turned out really well. I made a pizza with it a few days later which also turned out great. So yes, it’s a crime TJ’s got rid of this great and very useful sauce. Mind boggling. So just posting this Rant and sorry you won’t be able to find this really great product anymore . At least TJ’s still sells the 28 oz cans of crushed or diced tomatoes which will make you a great sauce with little effor. I always have cans of tomatoes in the pantry as well as tomato paste (can and/or tube) So if you are inclined to make your own sauce, which is not hard and I think is worth the little effort it takes. Here’s an EASY HOMEMADE MARINARA RECIPE from NatashasKitchen, link below.
TIP (1) IMO adding a tablespoon of tomato paste at the start will make it even better (2) My mom taught me useful advice: Just double up the recipe when you cook some things because for the same amount of effort you will have another meal. You can also freeze the extra batch.
Pizza from scratch; made using this terrific marinara sauce
“A zesty dip with hearty black beans and the smokey kick of chipotle peppers”
UPDATE Spring 2022 : ITS BEEN DISCONTINUED!!
(For the archive…..)
Trader Joe’s CHIPOTLE BLACK BEAN DIP is delicious. I think this could even be one of their best products. It’s one of my favorites in any case and I try to always have a jar in the panty… It’s that good. It matches especially well with tortillas, or any of TJ’s excellent chips especially corn. It matches perfectly with TJ’s Organic Corn Chip Dippers. The Chipotle Bean Dip gets a spicy back beat from two kinds of chiles, chipotle and ancho chiles, which give this a slightly spicy heat level plus a tomato-y undercurrent. This dip is terrific as-is on its own but it’s also good as an ingredient. When I make quesadillas or tacos, I sometimes spread a little of this on the tortilla before cooking them or just serve some on top or on the side when I plate them. Naturally this is way healthier dip to put out for people compared to dips which have loads of calories / fat like a sour cream or cheese based dip. You can even mix a jar of this with a half can of the refried black beans which will make a nice side dish or a less spicy but still tasty dip, depending on the ratio. If you find this dip too thick, just mix in a teaspoon or so of lime juice, vinegar or water and thin it out to your liking. A jar of the BLACK BEAN DIP is $1.99 for 12 oz.
You have to try this dip with TJ’s terrific Organic CORN CHIP DIPPERS (or the Elote cousins) as the thick corn chips with this is a super combination. And AVOCADO of course! TIP – Gussy this up with cheese? Sure. Heat this up and top with grated cheese so it melts. Yum!
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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