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April Fools’? Yahoo reports Trader Joe’s closing all stores by 2017

Posted at 7:58 PM, Mar 31, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-31 19:58:21-04

An apparent April Fools’ Day joke hit the Yahoo website a day early, and now Trader Joe’s is responding. (Getty)

Is this just a case of April Fools’ arriving early, or is Trader Joe’s actually closing?

Yahoo! Style reported Thursday that Trader Joe’s will be closing all of its 457 stores by January 2017. Additionally, the grocer would also discontinue all products.

The Yahoo article reported that Trader Joe’s released a press release Thursday morning, however, there is no announcement posted to the site.

In a statement to WHO-TV, Trader Joe’s public relations director Alison Mochizuki said:

“Although we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we don’t want anyone to mislead our customers. Trader Joe’s is open for business and has no plans to close.  We had no involvement whatsoever in the April Fool’s hoax article.”

Heavy.com wondered if Yahoo messed up its publication schedule and published the story a day early.

Even though the story is not true, the Twitterverse made it clear how much they would miss Trader Joe’s.