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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Elle Hunt

I’m not sure a bakery needs a branded condom – can any business resist selling merch now?

A woman with a Trader Joe's tote bag
Trade Joe’s tote bag ‘has been increasingly ubiquitous in London this year’. Photograph: Nick Lachance/Toronto Star/Getty Images

For all its many charms, Norwich tends to lag behind London on internet-buzzy trends (personally, I count that as among its charms), but it’s not always easy to pinpoint by exactly how long. So I was interested to spot, on a recent trip into the fine city, a woman carrying a Trader Joe’s-branded tote bag.

Trader Joe’s is a US supermarket; it does not operate in the UK, let alone East Anglia. And yet its merchandise – specifically this black-strapped, red-stamped but otherwise unremarkable tote bag – has been increasingly ubiquitous in London this year, as noted by the New York Times in July.

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