Episode 112: Time for Tacos at Trader Joe's

Inside Trader Joe's

Hosts Tara Miller and Matt Sloan join Trader Joe's crew member Alex at the Monrovia 'Mothership' to showcase new marinated taco meats. The e

Key takeaways

• Pollo Asado has been reformulated using chicken thighs instead of breast meat to prevent dryness and reduce cost by $1.50 per pound.
• The new Carne Asada Ranchera utilizes sirloin flap meat, which is easier to handle on a grill without falling through the grates.

Main topics

• New marinated taco meats
• Grilling techniques

Notable quotes

You want a juicy, flavorful filling for them, not something that could . . . dry out like chicken breast.

Conclusion

This episode provides actionable cooking advice and highlights high-va

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Matt, you and I are based here at the Trader Joe's Mothership in Monrovia, California. And from here, we love going around the U.S. and around the world to tell the stories behind some of our favorite Trader Joe's products. In Speaker 1 (0:12) effect, what we're doing is retracing the steps of our product development team. And if you think about it, their treasure hunt comes first, and then our customers, and then we all get to discover new flavors at our neighborhood Trader Joe's. And, Speaker 3 (0:27) you know, as we travel, there's something I've noticed about the perceptions of Southern California. Speaker 1 (0:32) Oh, that we surf to work each day? No. That we know Marissa Tomei personally? Speaker 3 (0:36) Not that either. Speaker 1 (0:37) Well, what? Speaker 3 (0:38) Southern California is really well known for having tasty street tacos. Speaker 1 (0:41) And that is a fact. Speaker 3 (0:43) Lately, crew member Alex and his team have brought some delicious new taco meats to Trader Joe's. The kinds of flavors we're spoiled to have every day here in Southern California. Speaker 1 (0:53) Please tell me he's outside firing up the grill right now. He is. Let's go inside Trader Joe's. Speaker 3 (1:08) I'm Tara Miller, Director of Words and Phrases and Clauses. Speaker 1 (1:11) And I'm Matt Sloan, the Culture and Innovation Guy at Trader Joe's. And Speaker 3 (1:15) I'm Alex. All right, Alex, let's talk about some ideas for the grill that we can share with our customers. Speaker 1 (1:20) I'm in. We've got work to do. You've Speaker 2 (1:22) got a very hot grill here, Alex. It is toasty. I'm doing the two-zone method. I have half the grill on very high heat and the other half on a lower medium setting. It gives me the ability to kind of move the meats around as needed if one starts. Flaming up on the hot side, I can move it to the cool side. We're going to grill some chicken thighs today, which is a thicker cut. It takes a little bit longer to cook. So I like to do that on medium. That way the exterior doesn't burn Speaker 1 (1:45) while we're waiting for the interior to cook. I don't think these are just any old chicken thigh situation. Speaker 2 (1:49) No, these are our new pollo asado chicken thighs. This is designed to be a taco filling, a topping for burrito bowls, salads, serve it with rice, serve it on its own, however you like it. We had Speaker 3 (2:00) pollo asado for a long time, and it was made with chicken breast pieces. which to be honest, it tasted good, it had good flavor, but it would get pretty dry when Speaker 2 (2:08) you cooked it. It would. And we wanted to take this as an opportunity to improve upon something which we knew could use a little work. When it comes to tacos, you want a juicy, flavorful filling for them, not something that could potentially dry out like chicken breast. Speaker 3 (2:21) Yeah. And Speaker 2 (2:22) traditionally, chicken thighs are used. And the other benefit of it is that chicken thighs are less expensive than chicken breast. True. So our new retail is $1.50 less than what it used to be. Speaker 3 (2:30) Wow. Per pound. For a more delicious product. I Speaker 2 (2:33) think so. Speaker 3 (2:33) Let's get it on the grill. Let's Speaker 2 (2:34) do it. Speaker 3 (2:35) How big are these packages, Alex? Like, when you buy this product in the store? It Speaker 2 (2:40) really depends on the size of the chicken thighs at the time. It changes throughout the year. But the package that I opened today is about a pound and a half, and I have two fairly large chicken thighs in that package. I'm talking good size. Speaker 3 (2:53) Yeah. No, they're... Wow, wait. Speaker 2 (2:54) Those are giant. Speaker 3 (2:54) That's two giant pieces of chicken. That's just two chicken thighs? Like, full thighs there? That's Speaker 2 (2:59) two full thighs, and it's only $10.42 for that Speaker 1 (3:02) package. Speaker 3 (3:03) Wow. Speaker 1 (3:03) I want to make all kinds of chicken thigh chokes, but I won't. Speaker 3 (3:06) While these are cooking, you said you put them on the medium side, on sort of the lower heat side, so that they wouldn't cook too quickly on the outside, yeah? Speaker 2 (3:14) Yep. So you just brought out a tray of marinated meat. Yeah, this is our new carne asada. We took the opportunity to also improve both the flavor profile and the cut of the meat. So in this package as well, you're getting two large pieces of thinly sliced sirloin flap meat, which is also known as ranchera meat or a ranchera cut. Speaker 3 (3:31) And our new label says carne asada ranchera. It does. For customers who've purchased this product in the past, when it was a different cut of meat, I think you'll notice right away it's a giant improvement on the quality of the meat. Speaker 2 (3:43) It's absolutely a lot easier to handle on the grill, I can tell you that, without a bunch of little pieces falling through. You got two pieces to work with. And depending on the package, you might get one big one or... three smaller medium-sized ones, but they're not going to be so small they fall through the grate. The Speaker 3 (3:56) packages are about a pound, a pound and a half somewhere in there? Yep, exactly. And the seasoning is a classic carne asada seasoning. Speaker 2 (4:03) Yeah, actually with both the chicken and the beef, our approach to the flavor profile on these new revamped items was to stay true to what we know here in Southern California as the essential taco meats. We have access here in Southern California to some amazing taco stands and carne asadillas. When we developed this product, we searched high and low to try to figure out what is it that makes these products so good. We dug deep on this and we came to find out that most of these recipes use something along the lines of a seasoned salt for a savory aspect and then a juice drink made from concentrate to give it some acidity and sweetness. So we kind of reverse engineered that. These products both use savory seasoning elements along with fruit juice concentrates like lime juice, orange juice, grapefruit juice to bring that zing and balance to it. Speaker 1 (4:49) So we're talking about some variations on classic Mexican cuisine. You can't smell it through your speakers, but man, it smells great. Speaker 2 (4:57) This is our twist on it, right? It's