Hello and welcome to slate money food a whole mini season devoted to the economics of food

and the food industry and everything associated with food and boy do we have the perfect

episode to kick off this series it is costco obviously in the news right now because everyone is storming it to stock up on whatever

they need in their home bunkers. There is one man who understands Costco better than anyone else around here.

That man is Zach Crockett.

Hey, how you doing Felix?

Zach, tell me about yourself, who are you and how did you find out all about Costco?

Yeah, so I'm a reporter at the Hustle, a business and tech newsletter.

Costco is just this weird fascinating place that in many ways breaks all the rules of retail. You can buy a 27 pound

bucket of mac and cheese, a casket, a dollar fifty hot dog, and a life insurance policy.

items sit in these wooden pallets and these dark unmarked isles,

the brand selection is super limited,

and you pay $60 just to get in the door.

So I was just wondering how this all makes sense.

We will find out. Coming up on slate money, food.

So, Zach, what proportion of Costco members do you think have been just like rushing to

Costco to stock up on everything as they start panicking about coronavirus?

This is something, you know, if you spend a lot of time on Twitter or online, you're going to see people

jousting over the toilet paper rolls, the panic buying, the empty shelves, all the pictures. I have to say though I think that is a

relatively small proportion of the Costco customers at large. Most Costco customers are families

who buy these big bulk orders or just people in the suburbs

stocking up on stuff. You see these retail arbitrage guys going in and buying big bulk packages of stuff and reselling it on Amazon for a profit.

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