“The way Trader Joe's makes their stuff cheap is they use what's called short code produce, which means stuff's not going to last long. So, for those of you who live up near Port Authority, there's the Stiles Farmer's Market. They do the same thing. They only get in short code stuff, and you can get artichokes for nothing, but you have to use them now. Can't use them later, got to use them now.”
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Answering a caller's question about New York grocery stores, Arnold recalls a past guest's explanation of how Trader Joe's keeps prices low. The takeaway: cheap produce usually has a short shelf life.
…for like 99 cents a piece or less, right? I get limes like $6, $7 a dollar, right? So like we can get our, especially if you use like on street or you know where to go, you can get food cheap, cheaper here than you can in the suburbs. Patrick, you're going back me up on this or you disagree?
…yeah, in our blog, a cut rate street vendor opened up. So you're getting juriscoals, you know. The jurisco stuff is literally like $1. I mean, that's, you know, as opposed to, you know, even stuff like that. So, you know, there's even the, let's say the used car market of produce available. Right.
So for those of you that want to look back, an episode that I really enjoyed, we had the person who wrote The Secret Life of Groceries on, and he was talking about Trader Joe's. And the way Trader Joe's makes his stuff cheap is they use what's Called short code, short code produce, which means stuff's not going to last long. So, for those of you who live up near Port Authority, there's the Stiles Farmer's Market. They do the same thing. They only get in short code stuff, and you can get artichokes for nothing, but you have to use them now. Can't use them, can't use them later, got to use them now. And so, that's a misconception. Even though New York is incredibly expensive in general, for certain things like this, if you live here and you know what you're doing, you can get off cheaper than you'd think. That's one. Two, you know, until maybe 10 years ago, right? And like maybe 20 years ago, Fairway expanded before it contracted, but that was only in a couple locations, right? They had decent prices. Zabar's had decent prices for higher-end foods, right? Then maybe like 10 years ago, we started getting the 12 years ago, we started getting Trader Joe's. Now we have Letles, we…
exclude them from this list, too. I mean, potentially. Right. This is the classic. And all of them are bad, frankly, in some way. Right, right, right.
But my point being that, like, these are the people might be thinking of those, and we're not talking about these. What we're talking about are Gristitis, Key Foods, Sea Town, Fine Fair, and what's that other one? Morton. Pathmark, Pathmark. Oh, Pathmark.
Sometimes. Yeah.