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 Grokett. 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 $1.50 hot dog, and a life insurance policy.

Items sit in these wooden pallets and these dark unmarked aisles.

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, you know, 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. And you also see, you know, the doomsday community going

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