'As a privately held company, we do not discuss our business strategy, financials or our suppliers,' the company wrote in a statement. We reached out to Trader Joe's to ask whether they could answer any of these questions, and not surprisingly, they said they couldn't comment. Trader Joe's Organic No-Salt Diced Tomatoes, $1.49 (left) and Muir Glen Organic No-Salt Diced Tomatoes, $2.69 (right) Blair Heagerty / SFGate Is Naked making Trader Joe's mango juice? Is Stonyfield providing the yogurt smoothies? Is Trader Joe's buying its canned tomatoes from Muir Glenn? And buying directly from manufacturers keeps costs low as you're cutting out the middleman.Д¬onsumers are all about trying to guesstimate Trader Joe's brand relationships based on packaging, ingredient lists and taste. Trader Joe's can keep its prices down because it doesn't spend big marketing dollars on advertising beyond its own Fearless Flyer, nor does it have a complex coupon program. Lempert adds that even if a brand name is making a generic product, they're very often using a different recipe than the products sold in other stores. 'It's a retailer working with a manufacturer to produce a product with the best quality they can at the best price they can, and they hold those relationships near and dear.' 'It's really nobody's business,' says Lempert. Trader Joe's Pita Chips with Sea Salt, $1.99 (left) and Stacy's Pita Chips Simply Naked, $4.79 (right) Blair Heagerty / SFGate (We're not saying Frito-Lay makes Trader Joe's pita chips, but that said, they do taste incredibly similar to the Stacy's brand.) If you were, say, Frito-Lay and quietly baking Trader Joe's pita chips, you wouldn't want people to know the TJ's generic is the same as your Stacy's pita chips that cost more. Similarly, the big brands don't want consumers to have this information, because Trader Joe's sells its products at discounted prices. Lempert says this is industry practice with all major grocery stores, whether Whole Foods or Safeway, which both have their own lines of generics. In an effort to get customers to develop loyalty to its own brand, Trader Joe's is incredibly secretive and closely guards the source of some of its signature products. 'It's not as if we can assume Skippy peanut butter is making the Trader Joe's peanut butter. 'There are companies out there that make only store-brand products,' says Phil Lempert, the grocery-retailing expert who calls himself the Supermarket Guru. Then they slap on the Trader Joe's label. Instead, the privately held grocery chain based in Monrovia, Calif., sources items from companies specializing in generic products, and, in some cases, from well-known brands. See, Trader Joe's doesn't have a factory where it makes its own products.

Trader joes gluten free mac n cheese