#crystalsalt

Dear Trader Joe,

You did not disappoint. Your impressive salt section left me craving popcorn, pretzels, potato chips, and all the other delicious snack foods that pop up around your store.

When I first walked in your doors of the West End store in Northwest DC, I was surprised by the massive crowd. Apparently, Saturday morning at 10am is prime grocery shopping time. The store was bustling with a diverse group of people – those who appeared as students, young families, and even business professionals (suits in a grocery store on a Saturday morning…only in DC!). As soon as I stepped through your doors, I could see the check-out line snaking in and around the entrance, all the way through the wine and beer aisle.

Trader Joe’s is my grocery store of choice, so I immediately knew where to find the salt. I weaved my way through the bread and cheese aisle, eventually around the produce section (the apples looked GREAT by the way), and finally to the baking aisle. Well, to be honest, I don’t really know what aisle it was. It was full of baking supplies like flour and sugar, as well as beans, pasta, cereals, and sauces. I have a question for you, Trader Joe…why don’t you label or number your aisles? I must say, it makes things a bit more chaotic.

Apart from the random medley of foods in the aisle, the salt is among the other seasonings on a tall, narrow unit of eight shelves. Although the space allotted for the seasoning is limited, the salt variety surprised me. My eye was immediately drawn to the bottom shelf, where I found the classics: fine sea salt crystals, large sea salt crystals, and pink Himalayan salt. Just one shelf up lived the onion salt, sitting right next to its partner-in-crime: pepper.

The bottom shelf was the most disorganized of them all. The salt containers were not displayed in any efficient way but were just randomly scattered on the shelf. There was an uneven amount of each type of salt, and the labels were facing to the front, back, left, and right. Oy! 

A few shelves above and closer to eye level, I found yet another variety—garlic salt. This Trader Joe’s version of garlic salt happens to be a favorite of mine (I recommend it on toasted sourdough bread with some margarine—yum!). This shelf was a bit neater, but the labels were again facing the wrong way. The other jars of seasoning that lived near the salts were much neater, with the labels facing proudly toward the front. This was peculiar to me, given that all the seasonings—including the salt—were around the $2.00 mark.

The uniform and clean labelling on the various jars was pleasant to the eye. The lettering was large and somewhat colorful, but not at all off-putting. However, Trader Joe, I think you may need a lesson in presentation. The organization of the seasoning was a bit wonky, and it could use some TLC.

But I still love you, Trader Joe. Your frozen desserts, trail mix, and tempura cauliflower make my heart sing. Thank you for being you.

Yours truly, Lauren Petersil