Frozen;

Marginal Chicken - very uneven sized/pieces . reheated in a toaster oven.

GREAT SAUCE - 2 sauce bags per package.

Not a bad product for a quick dinner with some sticky rice & a stir fry
veggies.

Have some Orange Chicken from Costco next week.

Dimitri

Dimitri wrote:
>
> Marginal Chicken - very uneven sized/pieces . reheated in a toaster oven.
>
> GREAT SAUCE - 2 sauce bags per package.
>
> Not a bad product for a quick dinner with some sticky rice & a stir fry
> veggies.

I don't think I've tried that product, but I've
eaten a ton of their Mandarin frozen chicken.
Those are deep-fried chicken pieces that come
with sauce packets. I always threw the sauce
packets away.

The chicken pieces are variable-size, but that
was mostly not a problem. I'd reheat them
in my cast iron pot, covered, over low heat.
They were a very convenient and tasty meal.
Being frozen, I could reheat a little or a lot.

I once mentioned to the guy handling the sample
desk that he should sample the Mandarin chicken
nuggets. He said that product was their biggest
seller.

I stopped buying them after getting a couple bags
that had lots of little tiny pieces, and a few
pieces of gristle or something that had a real
foul taste. That must have been at least two years
ago. It really turned me off to that product.

A similar thing happened with their chicken chili
verde. I used to buy that all the time, but after
a couple of bad ones, I stopped. I remember the
last time I ate one -- there was a piece of foul
gristle or something, and I said to myself "This
is why I stopped buying this product." After
having that reminder, I permanently stopped buying
them.

I wonder what goes through the minds of the people
who make this stuff? They must be morons if they
think people won't notice the change in quality.
And once people notice BANG you've lost them as
customers forever. I will never buy Trader Joe's
chicken chili verde or Mandarin chicken again.

If the low-quality chicken saves you a few bucks,
you'll only benefit from the reputation of the
previous high-quality product for a few months.
And then, you'll have destroyed that reputation.
That is your most valuable asset, but I suppose
the temptation to sacrifice it for a short-term
profit is too great, especially if the system
rewards short-term performance. By the time
sales decline, the executive that made the decision
will have moved on to other product lines.

Mark Thorson wrote:

>
> I wonder what goes through the minds of the people
> who make this stuff? They must be morons if they
> think people won't notice the change in quality.
> And once people notice BANG you've lost them as
> customers forever. I will never buy Trader Joe's
> chicken chili verde or Mandarin chicken again.
>



I hope you told a manager or someone who will pass the information up
the chain of command. I'm sure that they don't taste-test their
products constantly once they have been put on the roster. The only way
they can do some quality control is if customers speak up!

My parents owned a small grocery store from the late 40s to the mid 60s.
One day a lady brought back an empty packet of Lipton's Chicken Noodle
soup (Arthur Godfrey once mentioned that the closest a chicken had ever
gotten to the stuff was walking through in rubber boots.)

The customer complained that she had made it according to directions and
there were BUGS in it. After a few questions and one of the clerks
actually making a batch to show her on the hotplate in the back room, it
was determined that what she thought was bugs was actually the finely
chopped parsley that was the only solid ingredient other than the skinny
noodles.

gloria p