The Trader Joe's Copycat You Need Of This Popular Seasonal Cookie

The lingering warm temperatures are trying to keep summer alive — but according to grocery stores (and me), it's time to release the pumpkins. The seasonal products don't even need to taste like pumpkin; merely putting a pumpkin somewhere on either the packaging or the treat itself gives it the fall vibes I'm looking for. Trader Joe's has this figured out with its copycat seasonal cookie. The most trusted grocery store in America has private label ready-to-bake Pumpkins Sugar Cookie Dough that is strikingly similar to a certain Pillsbury Shape Pumpkin Sugar Cookie.

Of course, there are a few differences between the cookies from Trader Joe's and Poppin' Fresh (yes, the Pillsbury Doughboy has a real name). Cookie seekers will find that the Trader Joe's package contains 12 pre-cut cookies, while the Pillsbury option contains twenty. The TJ's pumpkin-stamped sugar cookies should not be eaten raw, while the Pillsbury Shapes Cookies are good to snack on, baked or not. Another significant difference is that the Trader Joe's option is a regular, faceless pumpkin, and Pillsbury's is a full-on jack-o'-lantern — the former giving more of a Gilmore Girls aesthetic while the latter leans Halloweentown. 

To achieve the vibrant colors of the jack-o'-lantern, Pillsbury uses Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, and Blue No. 1 food dyes. The Trader Joe's cookies use annatto extract and turmeric oleoresin to achieve the more autumnal orange hue of its pumpkin. The use of different food coloring methods may seem like a minor detail, but for those looking to make more intentional snack choices, dye can make a difference. There are a lot of ingredient-conscious individuals who even go as far as making their own food coloring from scratch. 

Then there are those who just don't want an ingredients list to scare them. Sure, the annatto extract and turmeric oleoresin in the Trader Joe's sugar cookies may still sound like the words of a spell (fitting for the upcoming season), but they're actually both natural ingredients. Annatto extract is made from the seeds of an achiote tree, and turmeric oleoresin is derived from concentrated amounts of turmeric. Both are sources of antioxidants and have been linked to anti-inflammatory benefits.

On the contrary, the yellow food colorings in the Pillsbury Shapes Cookies have been linked to hyperactivity in kids and allergy-like reactions. All of these artificial dyes are part of the Food and Drug Administration's food dye ban that is set to go into effect in 2026. So while Pillsbury Shapes Sugar Cookies have remained a fall and Halloween staple for years, perhaps the Trader Joe's version is less of a copycat and more of an improvement on the original.