The Secret Life of Groceries

In one sentence: Benjamin Lorr's otherwise scathing investigation of the grocery industry — except when it reaches Joe Coulombe, where it drops the skepticism and delivers what Acquired treats as the single best character sketch of him.

Overview

Most of the book, in the episode's words, is "very critical, very journalistic" scrutiny of the grocery industry — "the whole rest of the book is applying a lot of scrutiny to the grocery industry." But its profile of Joe Coulombe — photographic memory, reads 1,200 words a minute, does arithmetic faster than executives can scan the page, remembers every employee's name, spouse, and birthday — is read out in full on the show and used as the core material for his founder profile. The book also supplies a "two paths" framing of Trader Joe's 1970 strategy (become an active, differentiated retailer, or scale up and compete on price) and a line describing Two Buck Chuck's "essentially unquenchable demand," both quoted directly on air.

Why It's Worth Reading

Ben introduces it flatly: "This comes from Benjamin Lorr, who wrote the exceptional book The Secret Life of Groceries." After reading the Joe Coulombe passage aloud, he adds: "I'm telling you, this whole book is just beautiful prose." He also flags exactly why the praise for Joe carries extra weight: "Benjamin Lorr, the guy writing this, very critical, very journalistic in his approach... The fact that he talks about Joe this way actually has a lot of credibility." Ben thanks Lorr by name in the closing credits: "I have a huge thank-you to Benjamin Lorr for writing the fantastic book The Secret Life of Groceries."

Source

Referenced in Acquired's Trader Joe's episode (2025-10-27), which draws on it at least three times: the Joe Coulombe character profile, the "two paths" analysis of 1970s strategy, and the Two Buck Chuck demand commentary.