Costco annual revenue

Between 2010 and 2021, Costco's revenue grew from $77 billion to $192 billion while choking deaths on food in the US tracked upward at r = 0.9674 — a finding that Costco's legal department has presumably reviewed and elected not to comment on. The bulk purchase model, which encourages Americans to acquire food in quantities usually associated with natural disaster preparedness, may correlate with consumption behaviors that outpace chewing capacity. This remains speculative. What is less speculative is that if you buy a 6-pound bag of almonds, you will eat more almonds than is strictly advisable at any one sitting.

The correlation between Costco revenue and choking deaths over 12 years is driven by shared underlying trends rather than any food-distribution mechanism. Both metrics trend upward as the US population ages, grows wealthier, and eats more. Costco's revenue growth reflects store expansion, e-commerce growth, and strong performance in the premium grocery segment. Choking deaths, which number around 5,000 annually in the US, are disproportionately concentrated in the elderly population and rise as the over-65 demographic expands. Both series also simply grow with the economy and population, ensuring their correlation without requiring anything more exotic.

The same correlation appears in a different pairing earlier in this dataset, which is itself a data point: when a mortality statistic and an economic metric are both driven by an aging population in a growing economy, they will correlate with nearly everything. The r-value is measuring demography, not danger.