Empire out of West Coast TJ’s
According to this article in “tomorrow’s” Forward (for some reason it’s dated May 7), all Empire products have been removed from Trader Joe’s markets in five west-coast states, and replaced with Aaron’s Rubashkin poultry.
The Forward reports that TJ employees indicated Empire products were often spoiled, inaccurately weighed, and not consistently available.
TJ’s VP of Marketing says they have no plans to “reinstate Empire” … Empire’s CEO thinks the shut-out is only “temporary.” As for me, I’ll be extra careful when I pick up boneless chicken breasts in the Coolidge Corner Trader Joe’s tonight.
This incident just happens to coincide with my recent sighting of Vineland poultry products at the local Shaw’s. I picked up a decent-sized roasting chicken at a competitive price, so at our next big Shabbos dinner, I’ll do a side-by-side comparison with an Empire hen. The “feather factor” is my biggest concern… I can’t stand Empire’s feathers.
UPDATE 5/10/04: Our friends at the Kosher Nexus admonish Empire in light of the scale scandal.
As an interesting aside, last week my roommate went to the local butcher (http://www.butcherie.com) to pick up a chicken for me to make Shabbat dinner. To my pleasant surprise, it had a plumba marked "MK" instead of the usual Empire "OU". This could only mean that we got a Canadian chicken, eh. You’re thinking, "my Jon, who cares if your chicken says ‘eh’ after everything?" They key to remember is that Canadia imposes the same featherless requirements on kosher chickens as on nonkosher chickens, meaning that Canadian kosher chickens have no feathers (or pretty darn close). All those in favor of NAFTA, raise your featherless hands.
Yes, the Chai chickens, which I think are the best tasting, plumpes, juciest chickens on the market, at least here in California. Needless to say, all of the restaurants in LA seem to have a preferemce for Chai as well. And they don’t seem to be any more expensive than Empire.
During my last trip to LA, in February, I saw a copy of the LA Jewish newspaper on my friend’s dining room table. On the back cover was a full page ad for Chai chickens explaining how great they are. Of course, I went looking for them when I got back to cholent-town (what Boston should be called instead of beantown), and couldn’t find any Canadian chickens. It seems they’ve made the migration! (Yes, I am suggesting chickens migrate.) Anyway, now that we’ve gotten one, I must search for more.