I highly recommend Patricia Marx’s piece in The New Yorker last week (Jan. 16) about grocery shopping in New York. Not only is it incredibly funny, it really captures the economics of groceries here.
“If Costco were a country, its revenues would make it the sixty-fifth largest in the world, ahead of both the Republic of Microsoft and Applestand and right behind the United Kingdom of Procter & Gamble,” Marx writes in “A Bushel and a Peck.”
The following facts about Costco are quoted directly from the piece, including the figure from ABC News, and should be attributed to The New Yorker:
Last year, Costco:
- Sold 92 million hot dog-and-drink combos at $1.50 each (same price as in 1985)
- Grossed $4.6 billion in meat sales, $855 million in seafood sales, $3.9 billion in wine (it’s the largest wine merchant in the U.S.), $1.9 billion in TVs, $1.1 billion in baked goods, and $3.9 billion in produce
- Per ABC news, Costco sells $300,000 worth of cashews every week, buying more than half the world’s supply of the nut
- Biggest selling items: toilet paper, nuts, and rotisserie chicken excluding tobacco and gasoline
- Last year, Costco pumped 2.6 billion gallons of gas; filled 35 million prescriptions
