The label includes adult and children's wear, shoes, handbags, jewellery, beauty products, and bath items.

In 2004, Loblaw approached Joe Mimran, co-founder of the Club Monaco retail chain and the name behind the Alfred Sung brand, to collaborate on a new fashion line.

Mimran, who had previously worked with Loblaw on its President's Choice Home Collection, was tasked with creating a clothing line for adults, a market segment the company had not explored before.

Additionally, practical considerations played a role, as the clothing line needed to withstand the wear and tear of shopping carts and the flow of supermarket traffic.

But retail consultant, Dalan Bronson of the J.C. Williams Group, was more cautious, contending that the jury was still out on the brand's long-term prospects, given the fickle nature of the fashion trade.

[8] In 2007, Loblaw began expanding the line to include sleepwear, lingerie, and children's wear, "and quickly became the top seller of kid's clothing in the country.

But experts have been a little surprised by how many young urbanites, regulars at Holt Renfrew and other high-priced boutiques, are willing to snap up $29 cable-knit sweaters and $49 skirts without the slightest hint of shame.

Although media reports speculated that the brand would remain strictly a Canadian phenomenon, in 2011, Loblaw announced its most ambitious plans yet for Joe Fresh – four retail outlets slated for metropolitan New York City with "an international flagship store" on Fifth Avenue.

"We felt it was time to make the first step into the international market with a store in the American fashion capital, and one of the most exciting cities in the world, New York.

"[9] But while Loblaw management was cautious in tone regarding Joe's entry into the American market, Mimran spoke ambitiously, envisioning as many as 800 stores across the U.S. in five years, with the possibility of taking the label beyond North America, into Europe and Asia.

"[13] Mimran also expressed the view that considering the enormous sales volume of the brand in Canada, to not attempt an entry into the United States market and beyond would be a matter of "short-changing ourselves.

"[2] In July 2011, New Yorkers were given a sneak preview of Joe Fresh fashion with the opening of a 600-square-foot pop-up summer store, replete with a wall display of brightly colored flip-flops, at the Long Island resort of East Hampton Village.

New York City's first permanent Joe Fresh store, located in Manhattan's Flatiron District, opened in November 2011.

On 24 April 2013, an eight-story commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed in Savar, a sub-district near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

[20] The building housed a number of separate garment factories employing around 5,000 people, several shops, a bank,[21] and manufactured apparel for brands including the Benetton Group, Joe Fresh,[22] The Children's Place, Primark, Monsoon, and Dressbarn.