Talk:Trader Joe's/Archives/2021
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The lead. Or the lede. Whatever.
Why do we need to mention the German corporate ownership of this essentially American company in the second sentence, given that we go into it in a bit more detail in the little history essay in the second paragraph? Why do we say stuff like "according to TJ's management, (it) operates independently"? Why not just say it operates independently? Why do we mention the completely unrelated (other than family ties) Aldi Süd? What is a "fresh format" grocery store? Why does it matter enough for the lead that in some particular year (2015) it "became" a competitor in that field?
Here's the lede stripped of unnecessary detail:
- Trader Joe's is a American chain of grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California with over 500 stores nationwide.
- The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe in Pasadena, California. It was owned by German entrepreneur Theo Albrecht from 1979 until his death in 2010, when ownership passed to his heirs. The company has offices in Monrovia and Boston.
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Everything else will be happier in context in the body of the article. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 22:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
- I absolutely agree with your edits. Everything else is misplaced and slapped together, your version has all the necessary details and removes the weird commentary on Aldi being independent. It's interesting for the article, but not for the lede. --Cerebral726 (talk) 12:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
German vs. American
Remembering that the point of articles is to inform a reader, I advocate that the lede remain as identifying this as an American chain. While obviously owned by some German entity, it's confusing to start by saying it is connected to Germany. Ifnord (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2021 TC)
It's not confusing, it's factual. But, Wiki clearly doesn't have any guidelines because companies are not consistently described. That's what's confusing. Maybe someone should come up with some rule and apply it across the board. Some examples:
- Subway is called "American." It's privately-owned by Americans, but has stores in many countries.
- McDonald's is called "American." It's publicly-owned by anybody and has stores in many countries.
- Starbucks is called "American multinational." It's publicly-owned by anybody and has stores in many countries.
- Tim Hortons is called "multinational." Its ownership is difficult to boil down, but even though it has stores in many countries, it's primarily associated with Canada.