Here's Colorado's Favorite Trader Joe's Product, Apparently

When Trader Joe's announced its long-awaited Colorado debut over a decade ago, there was a lot of excitement. The number-one reason? The food.

"Folks here in the 5280 have been hoping, praying to various gods and petitioning Trader Joe's to open stores here for years, and it's about time we get to stuff our mugs with organic olive oil wheat wraps, Trader Jose's Mildly Spiced Vegetable Burritos, Organic Mango Passion Granola, Heat & Eat Falafel, Parmesan Pastry Pups, Trader Joe-O's cereal and Trader Joe's famous Speculoos Cookie Butter," Westword wrote at the time.

Ten years in, the grocery chain has ten locations in the state — and plenty of fans. So which item is the most popular? A study recently published on testcasinos.org breaks down each state's favorite item. Taking the top spot in Colorado is one of its many frozen meals, Mandarin Orange Chicken — which is also the favorite in California, Washington and Indiana.

The study's methods aren't based on actual sales numbers — which TJ's doesn't share. "Each Trader Joe's merchandises its store for the neighborhood, so the most popular items can differ from store to store, and we don’t release specific sales data," explains its public relations manager, Nakia Rohde, who adds that Mandarin Orange Chicken is in the Trader Joe's Product Hall of Fame along with other customer favorites such as Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets, Unexpected Cheddar and Soy Chorizo.

Instead, this study "reviewed popular hashtags related to the store and the posts tied to these hashtags to build a list of the most positively discussed products across major social media platforms — Facebook, Reddit, Twitter & Instagram," says the post. "The number of comments is used as a metric to rank the top products for each state [and] are determined based on location-based comments and Google Trends data."
So we conducted our own study of sorts, asking Westword staff via email to name their favorite item at Trader Joe's. Top picks include chicken piccata, chili-lime rolled tortilla chips, palak paneer, pizza kettle chips, pancake bread, steak and stout pie, Thai lime and chili cashews, Thanksgiving stuffing popcorn, sharp cheddar sourdough cheese sticks, veggie fried rice, tikka masala samosas, sundried tomato focaccia and kimbap.

Sweet treats are popular as well, including cookie butter ice cream, the Hold the Cone ice cream line, chocolate peanut butter cups and edible cookie dough.

But only one staffer named Mandarin Orange Chicken their favorite, explaining, "It is really easy to pop the chicken in the air fryer, heat up the sauce in a pot, and toss it all together. It's great to have in the freezer when you don't feel like cooking or after a weekend bender."

And while another staffer who is a big fan of other Trader Joe's products noted her dislike of the Mandarin Orange Chicken, it's always stocked at her home because her husband is a huge fan. "A perfect easy meal to make, especially if you're one of the many lonely dudes in Menver," he says. "Goes great with a side of rice, which you can get across the aisle at Trader Joe's."

If you're one of those lonely dudes, maybe pick up fresh flowers for your crush along with your frozen meal next time — TJ's selection is top-notch.