products dropped from stock by trader joe's

[imfeelinpeckish]

One of the favorite items I enjoyed and used from Trader Joe's was a canned item of lump crabmeat. It was about 1 lb and was a very good item. It was not Phillips but of excellent quality. Then all of a sudden it was not available and I was told it was "backordered". But it never appeared again on the shelves. Anyone else come across this and/or found a good substitute product. Sorry I don't recall the particular product name.

[libgirl2]

Mango salsa :-( I still can't believe it!

[Ariadanz]

Ditto on the Mango Salsa... although between the fresh mangos, precut mangos and the salsa kit they sell I usually just make my own now. Save the tomatoes for something else, use the rest of the kit and dice up some of their precut mango a bit finer and be done with it.

I also miss the individually quick frozen tilapa loins they had once, could cook them from frozen. And the Green Curry Vegetables they had - in the take out container? Shelf stable, yummy... they still have the Kung Pao etc but not the Green Curry ones (le sigh...)

[coney with everything]

Just a heads up--the TJs by me had the triple peanut cookies marked down to $1.99 (from $3.99)...I forgot to ask the cashier, but when TJ's marks stuff down it's usually the beginning of the end.

Bummer, I really like these when I don't feel like chocolate chip/almond.

[greygarious]

There is more detailed info on this topic at www.traderjoesfan.com, which is not affiliated with the company.

[givemecarbs]

Thanks for starting this new thread imfeelinpeckish. That other thread was getting cumbersome. I was surprised not to see the pretty white yogurt covered pretzel snowflakes this past holiday season. I took them into work the year before and everyone loved them. Very pretty too. Those truffles BETTER be back this year! The truffles in the red box are so good that for a few years now my friend John's relative passed them off as homemade and got away with it. At least til I dragged John into Trader Joe's the year before last. John is keeping mum about the truffle scam. They are too good to call her on it! She might stop bringing them.

[greygarious]

I've never bought them, but did see the white yogurt pretzels last month. There were only 3 boxes of the truffles - and none once I spied them! A word to the wise - last year I had a couple of boxes kept unopened at room temp, the last until fall. By that time, much of the chocolate flavor had dissipated, replaced by the taste of oil. So this year I will freeze an unopened box until fall to compare.

[givemecarbs]

Be sure to get back to us on the results of your truffle research greygarious. I got the last box of truffles at my TJ's last week. It looked so lonely and needed a home. Been taste testing TJ's truffles vs two kinds sold at Costco. Still like TJ's best but the Costco ones are mighty fine as well.

[Steve Green]

As noted, there have been long threads about beloved discontinued items at TJ's. But I'll say my piece again:

I heard (and this was confirmed by a store manager) that TJ's regularly removes the lowest-selling 10--15% of items and replaces them with new items.

I just can't get my head around this concept. If an item with sales just below the cutoff line is replaced with another item that sells much poorer than that, hasn't TJ's lost out? I mean, there will always be some items that don't sell as well as others, right? This somehow seems like a bad practice, unless I'm missing some logic here.

[mrbigshotno.1]

Half sour pickles, half sour pickles, half sour pickles.
The little cheesecake bites the size of petitfors.
Did I mention half sour pickles?

[GourmetLight]

FYI, there's a 398-post thread on discontinued TJ's items here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/3838...

[eamcd]

This is the one drawback to TJs -- just when you get hooked on something, it can disappear.

We loved the gorgonzola walnut tortelini-- that's gone too.

DH absolutely loved the "Mingling Olives" -- a glass jar of a mix of good olives.

These are the things off the top of my head -- but there's always something!

[walker]

I used to really love the artichoke hearts w/palm hearts in glass jar. Also, in glass jar, the excellent dolmas -- just veg. in olive oil, from Turkey. I still have one jar left.

[ricepad]

Mrs. ricepad and our daughter absolutely loved the apricot sauce from TJs....it was kind of the bastard child of apricot jam and apple sauce: the flavor of one and the consistency of the other. They'd pour it on cereal, ice cream, toast, or just eat it straight from the jar. It's been several months since TJs stocked it, but Mrs. ricepad sighs wistfully and loudly while shopping there and looking for it on the shelf.

[SerendipitouslyNG]

I gave up getting hooked on Trader Joes items a long time ago, when they would continually stop stocking my favorite things, including the best artichoke tortellini (non-dairy filling, it was just artichoke and spices) that I've ever had and lived on for about 6 months before it disappeared. God help me if they don't keep the gnocchi sorrentina!

[JK Grence the Cosmic Jester]

I'll be surprised if they ditch the gnocchi. I remember seeing those in the freezer case a decade ago. That's the thing about Joe's, it's either there for six months, or it's there forever.

[ed1066]

They dropped the soy butter I liked. It was a great alternative to peanut butter. They don't carry any type of soy butter now at our local TJ's.