There is a famous image known as the ‘Boris Yeltsin Supermarket Photo’ where upon visiting a store in Texas, he throws his arms up with surprise presumably due to the availability of goods. Looking back today, much of this seems like overprocessed preservatives and wheat/corn slurry, but at the time the lights and flashy packaging must’ve seemed like incomparable wealth to the first Russian president after the Soviet Union. We now analyze the availability of goods at Chinese Costco versus American Costco, primarily focusing on meat, to evaluate the relative merits of both locations.
History of Costco in Mainland China
As of this writing, there are (7) locations: Shanghai Minhang (first opened 2019), Suzhou (2021), [Shanghai Pudong, Ningbo, Hangzhou] (2023), Shenzhen (2024), and Nanjing (2024).
They are also supposedly available on Tmall, a digital strategy first started 2014.
Costcos Comparison
Nanjing Costco
With regards to the meat section, I was most impressed by the presence of Australian beef (which is all grass-fed), cartilaginous and bony cuts of meat, and the variety of seafood.
As I aim for a simple diet of which grass-fed beef is a large part of, all these interesting fishes which I have no time to learn how to cook are not a major draw for me but nevertheless is impressive.
Augusta, GA Costco
Although it is unfair for me to compare Nanjing (population 9 million) with that of Augusta, GA (population 200k), my experiences traveling to Costcos in Boston and Atlanta tell me there is little significant difference in most places. Moreover, my comparison of only Costco understates the presence of other major retailers in America such as Whole Foods and Hmart, which are able to provide the diverse quality of goods comparable to Nanjing Costco. A more apt comparison would be between Seattle Costcos (where the HQ is) and the Chinese Costcos.
Nevertheless, I do find the lack of Australian beef except for the $16.99 per pound lamb rack or the $5.99 per pound deboned leg to be disappointing. It requires a large amount of processing to eat well. Moreover, the absence of gristle and cartilage leads to a lack of gelatin in the diet and a higher balance toward tryptophan, which can lead to accelerated aging and lack of skin elasticity.
I’m not sure why my photos have an orange hue to them.
Despite the presence of numerous cuts of beef, without differences in the feed and growth and origin of the animal, there is no functional difference between USDA Prime, Choice, and Select besides that of the fat amount. Animals that are fed higher quality feed have fewer toxic byproducts in metabolic tissue, which makes for better human consumption.
Though some Americans may proclaim “I don’t like the fat and bone!” —this leads to reduced health over time, in a way somewhat similar to how students may refuse to do their homework. What led to American strength in the early 1900s and late 1800s was a new frontier of high quality foods: hearty dishes of meat, butter, and potatoes, and some of the tallest people in the world.
The inability to maintain the food systems and material constructs of a population in the pursuit of greater “efficiencies” leads to the decline of the people, such as the overemphasis on “protein-feed-conversion ratios” and the selling of waste products (cottonseed oil and bran) to humans.
You cannot trick nature; less energy spent means a de-densification in other important parts of the animal. To disturb the food system in pursuit of numeric goals such as weight (of which large amounts may be water and low-quality polyunsaturated fats) leads to worse taste and vibrance of animal life, and in humans it has this same dulling effect.
Other Thoughts
I primarily focused on food because of the essentiality of such on everyday life and energy. I find hard and tough vegetables such as broccoli, brussel sprouts, and carrots to be more offensive to the palate as I get older in addition to likely containing more antinutrients. Instead, I prefer the softer and less pungent cauliflower, cabbage, and lettuce.
