Trader Joe Just Announced They're NOT Doing This in Their Stores

If you're planning a healthy grocery trip to Trader Joe's anytime soon, the owners have made it very clear that there's one thing you should expect when you walk through the front doors. They say, you'll never see self-checkout machines because the owners say it's against everything they believe in.

In a podcast released last week by the company, Trader Joe's CEO Bryan Palbaum and President and Vice CEO Jon Basalone took questions from customers and employees, and the topic of self-checkout came up.

The host referenced a rumor that self-checkout was coming to Trader Joe's 560 stores, including the one located in Syracuse.

"That's as false as false can be, because we believe in people and we're not trying to get rid of our crew members for efficiency sake," Basalone said in the podcast. "I don't know what the reasons are people put self-checkout in."

Basalone and Palbaum referenced how the employees are such an essential part of the Trader Joe's experience, that that have no current plans to replace them, and have no thoughts to make such a move anytime into the future.

In a recent study, it was estimated that nearly 40% of all American grocery store checkout options are now self-checkout. That's an increase of 10% over the last five years. The findings are based on an analysis of 4.5 billion transactions made by 245 million consumers in the U.S. in 2021, according to GroceryDive.com.

During the podcast, Basalone and Palbaum dispelled some other rumors of things to come for the popular grocery chain. The duo says there will be no "drive-through sample cups of coffee" and no "in-store restaurants with in-aisle waiting areas."

Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi, which has stores in the Utica-Rome-Mohawk Valley region.

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