You know what they say — breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s also the hardest to wrangle up for a good portion of the population, seeing as how rushed we often are in the mornings.
Quite a few people across the globe skip breakfast on a near-daily basis, leaving them with less energy and gumption with which to take on the day. While a good quarter of the United States population is holding out until lunch, however, a TikToker shared by the @itgirl_ account is dutifully keeping her stomach filled — no matter how hard the ingredients make it for her.
Any breakfast is a good breakfast, but anyone who’s eaten them knows that hash browns are a guaranteed way to level up your meal. They are an unmatched staple of the breakfast feast, and — particularly when made correctly — they can easily be a show-stopper with very little effort. That effort is sliced down considerably when you buy some pre-made hash browns from the store, like our starch-loving heroine chose to do before a strange wrench was thrown in her plan.
A brief but head-scratching video showcases our protagonist’s dilemma after she tore open her package of hash browns to discover an unwelcome surprise inside. Instead of doing the vital work of properly hashing her browns, Trader Joe’s seems to have missed a step. Nestled in the package alongside a few handfuls of stringy, well-prepped hash browns is a full, completely ungrated potato, and it’s frozen to boot.
At that point, our tuber fan may as well make the hash browns for herself. Trader Joe’s was already only eliminating a single step — the grating step — with its pre-packaged product, and when you include a whole, unmarred potato in the mix it’s pretty much a DIY hash brown kit — which no one wants. It’s also a hilarious misstep on Trader Joe’s part, and one that tickled viewers immeasurably.
On the bright side, as one viewer was kind enough to point out, the video does prove that Trader Joe’s uses real potatoes to make their hash browns. In this world of artificial ingredients and additives, it’s actually quite comforting to know that this product, at least, is the real deal. Then there are other commenters, who tossed out suggestions for how the bonus potato can be used. Ideas ranging from a nice side of mashers — just in time for Thanksgiving — to a roast potato lunch are scattered throughout the comment section.
Defective products are actually purchased by state-side consumers quite regularly, though most are a bit more dire than a rogue potato. Back in 2021, more than 6,000 Americans were harmed in some way by a defective product, but no one is facing severe (or even minor) injury from an ungrated potato. It does serve as a minor failure on the part of Trader Joe’s quality control, but in the greater scheme of things, it’s really quite minor. Not to mention the stellar Trader Joe’s return policy, which will likely allow our hash brown lover to exchange her unmarred potato for a fresh package of (fully grated) starchy goodness.