Costco says it's seeing a shift in how much people eat at home vs. at restaurants
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- Costco said it's seeing a boost in meat and produce sales.
- Costco's finance chief said in the Q1 2025 earnings call that there was a shift toward "food at home."
- The retailer posted strong growth this quarter, with sales increasing 7.5% from the year before.
Americans are swapping dinners out for nights in, Costco said in its 2025 first-quarter results.
"I would say that we are seeing what we think is a little bit of a shift from food away from home to food at home," Costco's finance chief, Gary Millerchip, said in the company's Q1 2025 earnings call on Thursday.
He said the trend was "certainly reflected in strong meat and produce sales."
Customers showed a "gravitation towards those lower price per pound items across categories like poultry cuts of beef and pork as well," he said.
He added that international food items, such as "Synear pork soup dumplings, Sona Masoori Rice, and Hot Pot Beef Sliced Rolls," were also seeing "strong momentum."
The wholesale chain, which operates on a membership model, reported a strong quarter. It reported $60.99 billion in sales, an increase of 7.5% from the previous year.
Membership numbers increased by 7.2% compared to last year, with Costco ending the quarter with almost 139 million membership cardholders.
The company's stock is up nearly 50% since the start of the year.
Costco's comments on Americans' dining habits echo those made by other fast food chains and grocery retailers this year. They come as inflation and high food prices leave Americans looking for ways to save on costs.
"Consumers are choosing to stay at home or look for cheaper alternatives than more expensive sit-down restaurants," Jefferies analysts wrote in a July note.
The CFO of McDonald's told analysts at the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference in March that lower-income consumers "are just choosing to eat at home more often."
In June, the fast food chain launched a $5 value meal to try to win back some customers. Its rivals, Taco Bell and Burger King, quickly followed suit.
And the country's largest grocer, Walmart, told CNBC in May that the rising price of eating out has pushed more people into its stores to buy groceries.
"It's roughly 4.3 times more expensive to eat out than it is to eat at home," Walmart's finance chief, John David Rainey, told CNBC. "And that's benefiting our business."
Costco didn't respond to a request for comment.