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TJs is antithetical to your typical green grocer. They are not really geared to move a highly perishable product through their system in the way a grocery store does.
Stores "go on ad", meaning that they advertise special prices for produce, then they will lean on the larger farms who ship direct from the field, or they will go through brokers. These are often times the freshest produce because it hasn't sat in a warehouse. Either way, they buy #1 grade quality to start with, and then the freshness will be dependent on how far you live from where the produce was grown. That's why I say don't buy foreign grown produce.
The market for, lets just say, lesser quality produce is more dicey. It can be re-bagged, or it can have changed hands several times before it gets to the store. It may have sat in cold storage for months. Costco, Smart and Final, and to an extent TJ have been known to do this. They need the markup. So they buy cheap. It's all about margin, and they don't have the lightning fast distribution systems in place that a green grocer has. They care about two things: price and volume. To an extent, all stores do really, but the grocery store will make it's living on either freshness, or on cheap pricing. You can't have both.
The best way to educate yourself is to just go buy produce at these stores. Compare freshness and quality. Try not to buy produce that is bagged, such as carrots, oranges, tomatoes, etc. Sometimes it's unavoidable, such as when you buy berries or grapes, but for the most part, you want to really look at produce before you buy it. Don't buy apples at a gas station. They get produce from distributors like Coremark and the like. That produce is as bad a Trader Joe's.
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