Costco Connection - April 2007

cle. I am certain that readers and my fellow Costco members would be happy to know that American pets far outnumber the reported statistics.

Will the hothouse veggies be available at my warehouse?

Jane Seeley
Mount Shasta, California

According to the 2005–2006 APPMA National Pet Owners Survey, pet ownership is at an all-time high, with 63 percent of American households owning a pet. Americans own an estimated 74 million dogs, 91 million cats, 17 million birds, 18 million small animals, 11 million reptiles and a whopping 149 million fish.

Reply from Keith Neal, Costco produce buyer:

As evidenced by these astounding statistics and the amazing business profiles in your article, our pets have a profound influence on our lives, and we are all the better for the love, support and enrichment they provide.

These peppers are grown in hothouses in Baja California, Mexico. The ones you saw were either from Joe Paez (Prime Time label) or the Batiz family (Royal Flavor). Both growers supply hothouse-grown peppers to us from Baja, and both use beneficial insects to control the “bad bugs.” Artificial ripening agents and wax are not used on the peppers we buy.

Anne C. Ferrante
Senior Director, APPMA

Paez and Batiz are among of the top three hothouse pepper growers in Mexico.

Hothouse or not?

I enjoyed your article on hothouse veggies [February issue]. As a gardener and lover of organic foods, I was encouraged by the quality of the product produced by these methods: the use of natural bugs, quality feed and no ripening agents or wax.

However, when I went to buy the peppers in the Redding, California, warehouse, I noticed all the peppers were grown in Mexico, not in a hothouse. And since I know that commercially grown peppers are one of the most highly sprayed and chemically treated vegetables, I did not buy them.

When you use beneficial insects, there is a very strong disincentive to spray anything, because doing so will kill your beneficial insects! This goes double for hothouse tomato growers, who rely on bees to pollinate their plants. These bees are very expensive, and spraying kills them. Pepper plants have both genders and self-pollinate without the use of bees.

Attached is an aerial view of some of the

Beneficial insects control the “bad bugs” in these Baja California, Mexico, hothouses, which supply peppers to Costco.

Batiz hothouses in Southern Baja. You can probably tell from the lack of green that this isn’t British Columbia, and from the ocean in the background that this isn’t Ontario, Canada..

Impossible math

Your Buying Smart “Costco vs. the competition” sidebar [March 2007, page 47] proclaims that a member can reap a “308 percent savings” by buying Kirkland Signature [out-door furniture] vs. the competition. Since a 50% savings would mean paying half the retail price, and a 100% savings would mean that the item is free, does a 308% savings mean that you pay the customer more than twice the retail price to haul it away?