Costco vs. Gordon Food Service | The Earthling's Handbook
It’s Works-for-Me Wednesday ! It’s also Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, so you might want to check out last year’s food styling ideas suggestions for Lenten fasts that help the environment or my musings on vanity and seeking help .
I’ve been a member of Costco for some time, and the money we save by buying some things in larger packages there more than makes up for the $50 annual fee. Last year, I found out about another store that sells things in big packages, GFS Marketplace (Gordon Food Service) , which doesn’t require membership; anyone can walk in and buy things there. Which store is the better deal? It depends on what you’re buying.
Last month, I bought the food for 115 Girl Scouts for a weekend at camp (I’m no longer a troop leader, but I accepted a call to volunteer as their food buyer and drive the car full of food to camp), and this gave me an opportunity to compare Costco’s and GFS’s prices more extensively than I ever had before.
I did the shopping in these steps: Saturday, six days before camp, I went to GFS and bought all the foods that didn’t need refrigeration and had prices I considered thrifty based on my mental price points. (I am a data manager by profession and can keep a lot of this stuff in my head!) I also bought items GFS had that I was pretty sure Costco didn’t have. I wrote down prices for perishable foods and items I wasn’t sure were a good value. Saturday, I also went to Costco and bought other nonperishables and compared prices to those I had written down at GFS. Friday, I went back to Costco first because it’s on the way from my house to GFS. I bought perishables that were lower-priced there than at GFS. I had intended to make a second trip to GFS, but fitting everything into my little car took longer than I’d expected, and the GFS that’s on the way to camp is accessed by a lot of local roads; I was afraid of getting stuck in rush-hour food styling ideas traffic and/or having trouble finding my way to the highway. Instead, I went to the regular supermarket (Shop ‘n’ Save) and Family Dollar store near Costco to pick up the remaining items.
I’m only citing actual prices food styling ideas for the items whose prices I wrote down. For the other “better prices” I mention here, either I bought the item at GFS and later checked the price at Costco and saw that I’d saved a non-trivial amount, or I rejected the item at both GFS and Costco and then found it cheaper at Shop ‘n’ Save or Family Dollar.
Costco has better prices on fresh fruits and vegetables: Bananas were 49c/pound at Costco, 67c/pound at GFS. (67c is an unusually high price even in regular supermarkets, locally.) Oranges were 77c/pound at Costco, 85c/pound at GFS. Apples were 80c/pound food styling ideas at Costco, 96c/pound at GFS. Celery sticks were $1.89/pound at Costco, $1.93/pound at GFS. (Small difference on that one! Both had the leaves trimmed off, so only edible celery is included food styling ideas in the weight.)
Costco has better prices on these items: bread and hot-dog buns. I didn’t write down the bread prices, but the buns were 12c each at Costco, 16c each at GFS, and when you’re buying hundreds of them, that really adds up! 100% juice in individual servings (These were for the snack to eat on the way home .) Parmesan cheese
These foods were very similarly priced at Costco and GFS: breakfast cereals coffee (GFS happened to be having a sale on Maxwell House; food styling ideas their regular price is similar to Costco’s) chocolate bars graham crackers assorted chips in individual servings (These were for the snack to eat on the way home .)
GFS has some items Costco just doesn’t carry: Pasta in 5-pound bags and 20-pound boxes. Costco only sells multi-packs of 1-pound boxes, which is just stupidly food styling ideas wasteful even if you’re buying for a small family, since pasta stays good for a long time even in an open package. My family buys 5-pound bags at GFS (they even have whole-wheat food styling ideas pasta!) and transfers the pasta to repurposed containers . Costco’s pasta is name-brand and much more expensive. Another disadvantage food styling ideas of having many small boxes, when you’re food styling ideas cooking for a crowd, is that you have to open each one! Big bags of beverage mix–lemonade and fruit punch. (If I were the cook at camp, I’d make real lemonade , which costs the same or less and is healthier, food styling ideas but I wasn’t the cook, and they’d asked for “bug juice”.) Big bags of hot cocoa mix. So much less trash than a bunch of boxes filled with little packets, and much less expensive! Big cans of pudding. The only pudding I could find at Costco was packaged in individual servings .
Then again, Costco has some things GFS doesn’t (after the first two, these are not things food styling ideas I was buying for camp but things my family likes): Salad dressing in large-sized n
It’s Works-for-Me Wednesday ! It’s also Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, so you might want to check out last year’s food styling ideas suggestions for Lenten fasts that help the environment or my musings on vanity and seeking help .
I’ve been a member of Costco for some time, and the money we save by buying some things in larger packages there more than makes up for the $50 annual fee. Last year, I found out about another store that sells things in big packages, GFS Marketplace (Gordon Food Service) , which doesn’t require membership; anyone can walk in and buy things there. Which store is the better deal? It depends on what you’re buying.
Last month, I bought the food for 115 Girl Scouts for a weekend at camp (I’m no longer a troop leader, but I accepted a call to volunteer as their food buyer and drive the car full of food to camp), and this gave me an opportunity to compare Costco’s and GFS’s prices more extensively than I ever had before.
I did the shopping in these steps: Saturday, six days before camp, I went to GFS and bought all the foods that didn’t need refrigeration and had prices I considered thrifty based on my mental price points. (I am a data manager by profession and can keep a lot of this stuff in my head!) I also bought items GFS had that I was pretty sure Costco didn’t have. I wrote down prices for perishable foods and items I wasn’t sure were a good value. Saturday, I also went to Costco and bought other nonperishables and compared prices to those I had written down at GFS. Friday, I went back to Costco first because it’s on the way from my house to GFS. I bought perishables that were lower-priced there than at GFS. I had intended to make a second trip to GFS, but fitting everything into my little car took longer than I’d expected, and the GFS that’s on the way to camp is accessed by a lot of local roads; I was afraid of getting stuck in rush-hour food styling ideas traffic and/or having trouble finding my way to the highway. Instead, I went to the regular supermarket (Shop ‘n’ Save) and Family Dollar store near Costco to pick up the remaining items.
I’m only citing actual prices food styling ideas for the items whose prices I wrote down. For the other “better prices” I mention here, either I bought the item at GFS and later checked the price at Costco and saw that I’d saved a non-trivial amount, or I rejected the item at both GFS and Costco and then found it cheaper at Shop ‘n’ Save or Family Dollar.
Costco has better prices on fresh fruits and vegetables: Bananas were 49c/pound at Costco, 67c/pound at GFS. (67c is an unusually high price even in regular supermarkets, locally.) Oranges were 77c/pound at Costco, 85c/pound at GFS. Apples were 80c/pound food styling ideas at Costco, 96c/pound at GFS. Celery sticks were $1.89/pound at Costco, $1.93/pound at GFS. (Small difference on that one! Both had the leaves trimmed off, so only edible celery is included food styling ideas in the weight.)
Costco has better prices on these items: bread and hot-dog buns. I didn’t write down the bread prices, but the buns were 12c each at Costco, 16c each at GFS, and when you’re buying hundreds of them, that really adds up! 100% juice in individual servings (These were for the snack to eat on the way home .) Parmesan cheese
These foods were very similarly priced at Costco and GFS: breakfast cereals coffee (GFS happened to be having a sale on Maxwell House; food styling ideas their regular price is similar to Costco’s) chocolate bars graham crackers assorted chips in individual servings (These were for the snack to eat on the way home .)
GFS has some items Costco just doesn’t carry: Pasta in 5-pound bags and 20-pound boxes. Costco only sells multi-packs of 1-pound boxes, which is just stupidly food styling ideas wasteful even if you’re buying for a small family, since pasta stays good for a long time even in an open package. My family buys 5-pound bags at GFS (they even have whole-wheat food styling ideas pasta!) and transfers the pasta to repurposed containers . Costco’s pasta is name-brand and much more expensive. Another disadvantage food styling ideas of having many small boxes, when you’re food styling ideas cooking for a crowd, is that you have to open each one! Big bags of beverage mix–lemonade and fruit punch. (If I were the cook at camp, I’d make real lemonade , which costs the same or less and is healthier, food styling ideas but I wasn’t the cook, and they’d asked for “bug juice”.) Big bags of hot cocoa mix. So much less trash than a bunch of boxes filled with little packets, and much less expensive! Big cans of pudding. The only pudding I could find at Costco was packaged in individual servings .
Then again, Costco has some things GFS doesn’t (after the first two, these are not things food styling ideas I was buying for camp but things my family likes): Salad dressing in large-sized n
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