Trader Joe's Just Announced Its Top Fan-Favorite Products Of The Year

Trader Joe's is the most popular grocery store among Gen X as of December 2022, according to YouGov, which Statista notes has more disposable income than any other generation. It's also the most popular grocer among Boomers and the second most popular among Millennials (first place went to Aldi, which has this surprising connection to Trader Joe's). Whatever else might figure into this creatively marketed grocer's je ne sais quoi, Trader Joe's certainly knows how to bond with its customers on an emotional level, a concept known as brand intimacy, according to MBLM, which ranked Trader Joe's number one in brand intimacy for 2022, according to a report published in late November. Moreover, Chain Store Age ranked it not only 2022's top grocer in terms of customer satisfaction but also 2022's top retailer, full stop.

One thing Trader Joe's certainly seems to be doing right is making a concerted effort to ascertain customers' favorite products. It's been doing so every year since 2009 via a survey collected through its mailing list, social media, and website (via Winsight Grocery Business). Most recently, the brand asked respondents to name the nine Trader Joe's products they would take with them if they were to spend the rest of their lives on a desert island. The survey attracted more than 18,000 responses, and the results were posted on its website on January 23. But there's a twist.

This year, Trader Joe's excluded five of the most popular products from the last 13 years from the choices, according to its website. TJ's moved those five (Mandarin orange chicken, dark chocolate peanut butter cups, peanut butter-filled pretzel nuggets, unexpected cheddar, and soy chorizo) into a brand-new Trader Joe's Product Hall of Fame — a genius move that made room for the quirky grocer to identify new products that its customers also love.

With the Hall of Fame inductees now being regarded as a given among TJ fan favorites, a new favorite overall product has emerged from among the pack: Trader Joe's chili & lime-flavored rolled corn tortilla chips, a runner-up in last year's survey. This left room for several new products to enter the runner-up category, namely TJ's hashbrowns, steamed chicken soup dumplings, and chocolate croissants; Everything but the Bagel sesame seasoning blend, which had been a runner-up last year, also shared the limelight in the overall category.

Other highlights include the number one entree, butter chicken, a former runner-up to the Mandarin orange chicken. This year's honor for top-ranked beverage went to sparkling Honeycrisp apple juice, and the number one cheese was cheddar with caramelized onions.