The Gardiner resident moved here three years ago from Los Angeles, where she was a devoted patron of the store, a privately owned, national chain that operates in 23 states – but not Maine.
Trader Joe’s emphasizes fresh, natural and unusual ingredients in the prepared meals, beer, wine, groceries and other goods on its shelves. Lamb misses them so much she started an online petition drive to bring the store to Maine.
The petition has attracted more than 500 signatures since it went up in 2005, including a recent wave of names following the announcement by Whole Foods that it soon will close the Wild Oats store it acquired in Portland.
Most of the signatures on the petition are from southern Maine residents who moved here from elsewhere and, like Lamb, are having trouble adjusting to a Joe’s-less life.
“All the transplants from all over the place want it,” said Clare Harrington, a Joe’s junkie who five years ago moved from Massachusetts to Falmouth.
Harrington was fortunate enough to live just down the street from a Trader Joe’s in Needham, and she always stops there when she returns to the Bay State to visit family.
“One time I went in there and the woman in front of me had 30 jars of peanut butter in her cart,” Harrington said. “It turns out she was from Maine, and she just went down because she loves their peanut butter.”
Harrington herself zeroes in on the store’s snack foods for kids, frozen pizzas, whole wheat pretzels, pulled pork and a white wine from Charles Shaw wineries affectionately known as Two Buck Chucks. She says the food is healthier, fresher and less expensive than what competitors sell.
Suzanne Rouhana moved to Falmouth from Arlington, Mass., a year and a half ago.
She and her family make it a point to visit Trader Joe’s at least once a month on trips back home to visit friends.
“Whenever we’re down there, we always stop at Trader Joe’s, even if we’re in a hurry,” she said.
Rouhana’s shopping list includes nuts, trail mixes, salad dressing, cookies and crackers, especially the store’s own version of the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish cracker – made without hydrogenated oils. She said most of these items are priced lower than comparable items in major supermarkets, including Trader Joe’s chief competitor, Whole Foods.
For Kimberly Vine of Cumberland, the draw at Trader Joe’s is chocolate-covered soy nuts and mojito simmer sauce, a citrus mint cooking sauce good for simmering a Cuban chicken, rice and bean casserole.
“I’ve got friends who call my husband to place Trader Joe’s orders,” said Vine, whose husband works in Massachusetts. The couple moved here from Los Angeles nine years ago.
Alas, Trader Joe’s has bad news for its legions of Maine followers.
“It’s really nice to be wanted,” said Alison Mochizuki, publicity director at the company’s headquarters in Monrovia, Calif. “But your location is not in our two-year plan at this time.”
She declined to comment further about the company’s plans. Whole Foods, which competes with Trader Joe’s across the company, attracts its share of fans, too.
Residents of the northern California city of Novato used an online petition in 2005 as part of a successful campaign to convince Whole Foods to open a store in their community.
Whole Foods, which opened a store in Portland this year, is the world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores on this continent and in the United Kingdom. The company acquired Wild Oats, another organic foods chain, earlier this year and is closing the Wild Oats store in Portland before the end of the year.
Dan McGovern, who publishes a Portland-based online trade magazine and newsletter called Sustainable Food News, said both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s enjoy strong customer loyalty.
He noted that Trader Joe’s builds smaller stores that feel less like a chain, so it is capitalizing...
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