Trader Joe’s insiders reveal secret process behind how their products get such silly names

Trader Joe’s knows how to make grocery shopping fun.

On the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast, co-hosts Tara Miller, TJ’s vice president of marketing, and Matt Sloan, vice president of culture and innovation, shared that the grocer comes up with its product names “very carefully” — and they do matter.

Some products have names that are simple descriptors for the item, and you know what you’re getting upfront.

“Things like Cauliflower Gnocchi. That tells you it’s a little pillow pasta type thing, but it’s made with cauliflower. Very straightforward,” they explained.

Then there are the product names that still tell you what it is but is more on the “whimsical” side — like the Hold the Cone! Ice Cream Cones.

“It tells you what it is, but it also, it’s like, hold the cone. Why is it called that?” Miller said. “We take the whole process of naming our products pretty seriously, and oftentimes, going really straightforward makes the most sense.”

When Trader Joe’s does opt for the more creative name, it’s because they “believe that grocery shopping can be fun, that it does not have to be a chore.”

“And when you bring the things that you buy from your Trader Joe’s home, we’d love to extend that experience to your cupboard, to your freezer.”

For example, the chain’s “Walk Into a Bar” product line creates a mini universe of puns that only exist in Trader Joe’s and will help customers remember the product when it reappears months later in different packaging or a different flavor.

This Strawberry Walks Into A Bar is ostensibly a strawberry-filled cereal bar: “There’s nothing super exciting about it, there’s nothing truly innovative about it. It’s just really good and we sell it at a great price,” Miller shared.

The idea internally was allegedly to make it sound fun, so rather than saying, “I want a strawberry cereal bar,” someone will be asking specifically for This Strawberry Walks Into A Bar.

The branding led to a whole line of products, such as This Apple Walks Into A Bar or the seasonal This Pumpkin Walks Into A Bar — and there’s even spinoffs like These Peanuts Go On A Date in a bar or These Sprinkles Walk Into A Cookie

“We’re even riffing on our own joke. Hopefully, someone somewhere gets this,” Sloan explained.

Sometimes, their fun names come from being simple. Just Mango Slices are simply that — just mango slices, dried unsulfured and unsweetened mangoes.

“Another sort of whimsical name, but also very descriptive name that happened here, I don’t know, probably close to 10 years ago now was Everything But The Bagel Seasoning. It’s ubiquitous now,” Miller added. “We took that idea and we kept going with it.”

A name could also come before the actual product, and the item is made to fit the name its given.

“Someone working on a project, developing a product, could actually have a very crystal clear name in mind and they work to deliver a product that meets that name,” Sloan shared.

“Or sometimes, oftentimes, there are conversations along the way in development through and at the tasting panel where we almost workshop amongst ourselves an idea to say, ‘Man, those are giant olives. Those might be the world’s largest queen Saviano olives,’ and then it sticks from days long past.”

At the end of the day, the point of these fun product names is to have fun while grocery shopping.

“The entire ethos of Trader Joe’s is we’d like you to enjoy yourself while you’re shopping for groceries,” Miller said. “We’d like you to enjoy yourself while you’re eating what you’ve shopped for at Trader Joe’s at home.”

“And if putting a fun name or even a really strangely long descriptive name of a product on the package helps you find a little bit of fun in your grocery shopping experience, we’re all for that.”