Costco’s emergency food kit costs $1,000, lasts 25 years

Detroit Free Press (TNS)

DETROIT — Capitalists have a solution to everything, even surviving the end of the world.

Take Costco’s 1-year emergency food kit for $999.99, including shipping.

It is made up of nearly 100 cans — 1 gallon each and making 6,200 servings of food — of wheat, rice, granola, apples, bananas, peaches, strawberries, potatoes, carrots beans, onions, corn, beef, chicken, milk, sugar and salt.

The cans, the company said, will last up to 25 years.

The Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse club declined to offer much more about the items — or on how many people are buying the kit.

“We don’t normally give out sales data,” the company said in an email to the Detroit Free Press. “The idea came about making a great starter kit for a family who wanted to prepare for any kind of disaster. This is a great value with shipping included.”

Obviously, the disaster would have to be catastrophic for someone to need that much food, but entrepreneurs have long found ways to profit from people’s fears, especially when they involve an apocalyptic scenario: being wiped out by a massive hurricane, getting caught in clashes among groups with fanatical beliefs and facing fallout from a nuclear war.

How much of a market is there for these emergency kits?

“Right now, it’s too small of a trend to track,” said Jeff Gelski, associate editor of Food Business News in Kansas City, Mo., who has been writing about the food industry for more than a decade. “But, if Costco’s in it, it might be something that’s about to pop.”