Costco America Strange supplies? They stock it because it sells.

Extract from an article Emily Mester

Only in America? Coming to a store near you, in Australia?

Their emergency food department is stocked with the dizzying quantities that could only appeal to the truly doom-hearted. $279.99 gets you 600 servings of canned eggs; $449 gets you 12 cans of freeze-dried ground beef that will last you 90 days. Unlike fresh meat, the product copy reads, THRIVE Ground Beef has a shelf life of 25 years in the can. For $4,499.99, a single person can gorge for a whole year on a kit of chicken stew, breakfast skillets, and chili mac with beef, all nonperishable. I eventually read those reviews, too, some of them from customers who are saving for disaster, others from those for whom the kits comprise part of their everyday diet.