Costco Wholesale Corp. said Wednesday that it will start accepting food stamps at its warehouse clubs nationwide after testing them at stores in New York.
# The number of Americans relying on government food subsidies to eat recently hit a record 36 million.
# Company officials said they had doubted many customers would use food stamps but it turned out new members said they were joining precisely because the company accepted the assistance program.
# Because about half of Costco's customers are small businesses and the rest tend to be more affluent than shoppers at traditional grocery chains, Galanti said, executives had assumed there wouldn't be much response to it accepting food stamps but realized that assumption may have been wrong.
# The number of Americans relying on government food subsidies to eat recently hit a record 36 million.
# Company officials said they had doubted many customers would use food stamps but it turned out new members said they were joining precisely because the company accepted the assistance program.
# Because about half of Costco's customers are small businesses and the rest tend to be more affluent than shoppers at traditional grocery chains, Galanti said, executives had assumed there wouldn't be much response to it accepting food stamps but realized that assumption may have been wrong.
