Costco Sells Out Of Emergency Food Kits Online Amidst Coronavirus Outbreak

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Feb. 26, 2020

Costco Wholesale, which is one of America's biggest suppliers of long-term storable food, sold out of all their "emergency food kits" on their website after the CDC warned that Americans should be prepared in case the coronavirus becomes a pandemic.

Visitors to the "Emergency [Food] Kits & Supplies" section of their website are currently greeted with a message saying, "We're sorry, no products were found."

When I visited their site on Tuesday, only two products were listed, one of which was a large bin of macaroni and cheese. The site gave an error when I tried to open the page and said it was sold out. On Wednesday, the page was down altogether.

A Twitter user shared a screenshot of their page on Monday highlighting how they sold out of their $4,999 pallets:

Costco has sold out of the $4999 pallet with 1 year's worth of food (2800 servings!), but the 23 lb mac-and-cheese bucket with up to 20-year shelf life is still available.https://t.co/N28YCvGciL pic.twitter.com/QXdZMkhe9c
— Fat Tail Capital (@FatTailCapital) February 24, 2020

I visited a local Costco warehouse to stock up on Wednesday morning and didn't see any emergency food kits, though there was plenty of 12-25 lbs bags of rice.

Only one rice variety out of 5 or so was low on stock. The shelves were mostly full. I only saw one older Asian woman wearing a face mask (they're sold out everywhere).

The Mormon Church, which asks all their followers to always have an emergency food supply that will last their families 90 days, has a handy guide on their website for the best foods to buy or avoid, with a focus on long-term storage.

The Organic Prepper also has a useful guide.

The Spanish flu, which is believed to have been a bird flu as opposed to a possible bat coronavirus, lasted two years.

It's probably a wise decision to at least stock up on the basics you normally eat to get ahead of the crowd.

In America, for the time being, the biggest threats are to our supply chains.

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