Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…The brands have to pay money to the supermarkets just for the right to put their products on the shelves. And then even in modern days it's, "Hey, we've got in-store signage, we've got in-store TV screens. They call it retail media. You should pay us to advertise in the store at the point of sale."Trader Joe's is like, "Let's just eliminate all of that. The brand is just our brand. If you make the food for us, we will pay you for that. But it's our brand. You don't have to pay marketing costs. You don't have to pay the slotting fees to get on our shelves. We don't have retail media in our stores."The whole thing is about just compressing all of the margin out of all the activities that need to happen in the traditional system for this streamlined system. And in Joe's mind, and I think even through the next generations of Trader Joe's CEOs and all the way up through the company today, that practice of the supermarket CPG industrial complex is just gross. It's just disgusting. It's morally repugnant to them. I genuinely think they feel that way. And it's another take on the same thing that Costco and Sol Price and Jim Sinegal had about why they don't do sales. Trader Joe's also doesn't do sales and doesn't have coupons. It's like you're insulting your customers. You're pitching to them as if this is a discount and great thing and benefit for them, but actually it's the result of this highly pernicious system that inflates costs across the board for them.…

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