Trader Joe's Discontinues King Arthur Brand Flour
King Arthur Flour is suffering the heartbreak of a broken relationship with Trader Joe's. The symbiotic match—they needed a wider distribution and Trader Joe’s needed a quality flour—ended because Joe is ready to stock his own in-house brand flour. [via The Kitchn]
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13 Comments:
Noooooo!
sloppydelicious at 11:28AM on 03/06/09
That happened with our rice milk, but we were 'suggested' to try and compare the difference between the two items. Basically, the packaging changed, but not the content! Hopefully, that is true for your flour, but they won't tell you that so frankly!
pequenalooloo at 12:15PM on 03/06/09
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
foodiegirl at 12:18PM on 03/06/09
Here (Gainesville, FL) we have no Trader Joe's, but we can buy some varieties of King Arthur Flour at Publix, Albertsons, and Winn-Dixie. Maybe other King Arthur followers can find it at supermarkets in their areas.
dusksunset at 12:52PM on 03/06/09
TJ's whole business model is that they contract with other companies to use their product but put the TJ logo on it, so they can sell it for cheaper since there are no marketing, etc costs. I wouldn't be surprised at all if what you are buying continues to be KA Flour inside the package.
Cebca at 1:11PM on 03/06/09
Bummer!
edinat at 2:06PM on 03/06/09
Hiss... boo.... it was my source of King Arthur flour for years. I did notice that they haven't been stocking the Queen Guenivere cake flour for a while now, which I also think is great. They did have White Lily self rising cake flour for a while, but I haven't seen that there either - it's my favorite brand of southern style self rising flour. It isn't easy to find these flours in bridge & tunnel NYC.
MMinNYC at 2:24PM on 03/06/09
Boo! But they sell King Arthur's at Safeway, too. Only my friend visiting from LA says it's because I live in San Francisco.
marchpane at 3:42PM on 03/06/09
It will probably be KA flour in a Trader Joe bag.
dmcavanagh at 10:40PM on 03/06/09
Hi - Needed to chime in here. I'm a baker/blogger at King Arthur Flour, so I know for a fact that Trader Joe's is not selling King Arthur Flour in a TJ's bag. In fact, a reader commented on my blog that she'd bought a bag of TJ's flour, and it was nothing at all like King Arthur. So maybe TJ's is trying to match Gold Medal's specs rather than ours? I think what they'll "miss" on is probably consistency; flour's been our main business for 219 years, and it's not easy to put a consistently good bag of flour on the shelf year after year, decade after decade, what with the vagaries of wheat, weather, and prices. It's art as much as science, and it does take a lot of effort, knowledge, and experience to offer consistently good flour. I see how hard our flour team works to ensure our consistency. I like TJ's, and good luck to them; their Candy Cane Joe-Joe's rule... And I'll continue to pay the extra 6¢ or so per cup of KA, compared to TJ's, to ensure my brownies come out EXACTLY the way I want them to!
PJ Hamel at 11:55AM on 03/07/09
@marchpane -- Actually, I'm from LA as well, and I can pick up King Arthur's flour at any of the three Ralphs markets near me-- It was just more reasonably priced at TJ's. :/
bansidhe at 12:13PM on 03/09/09
I think I bought the last bag of KA at TJ's...but yes I can still get it at Safeway for a few bucks more. booo
Hey I had no idea TJ's ever had cake flour or self-rising for that matter... I've never seen it.
Pointy at 8:27PM on 03/27/09
If I couldn't get King Arthur flour, I wouldn't shop at a market.
Mares at 12:04AM on 03/29/09