Hacker News Reader

Comment by omilu | Hacker News Reader

Costco vets their products very well, if I see something at costco and its something I need I just buy it. No need to research and I've never been burned. They only sell good quality stuff.

View on HN

Check their tomato paste. It turns out that nearly every tomato paste in Australia comes from Xinjiang in China, including those marked as Australian or Italian. Simplot (Leggos), the big US company, was the worst offender, so it's possible that tomato paste in Costco's US stores has been produced in Xinjiang using slave labour, irrespective of what the label says.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-27/australian-tomatoes-l...

According to this none of the samples tested from US retailers contained Chinese tomatoes. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crezlw4y152o It seems like the US ban on Xinjiang is working

Thanks for that informative link. I looked to see if there was any data beyond the ABC article and didn't find it. Some of the truthful brands listed in the BBC article are available where I live. Kudos to the US that their labels match their contents.

The ABC just broke their story a few days ago. There will continue to be fallout over the next few months or years (much like their last one, where they found that many sunscreens did not meet their SPF ratings, a hot topic in the skin cancer capital of the world)

(edit: whoops, Choice did the SPF rating investigation. ABC just did a lot of reporting on it)

While it could of course be produced in Xinjiang without using "slave labor," the US government banned those tomatoes in 2021 because of that risk:

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-issu...

If Costco were circumventing the ban it'd be a pretty big deal. I couldn't google up any indications that they are, so on balance I'd say it's "possible" in the same way my winning the lottery is possible. Can't rule it out, but reasonable people should probably bet against it.

TIL: Xinjiang tomatoes are something like 15% of the global market!

> TIL: Xinjiang tomatoes are something like 15% of the global market!

China consumes 37% of the world’s tomatoes. 80% of China’s processed tomatoes are from xinjiang. Fresh tomatoes are generally grown locally, but that is true around the world.

China _produces_ 37% of the world's tomatoes, not consumes.

> It turns out that nearly every tomato paste in Australia comes from Xinjiang in China

I think that might be a bit of a strong assertion, from your article there -

"It analysed 221 processed tomato products from 39 brands, including paste, passata and diced tomato.

Twenty-two per cent of the products failed country-of-origin testing, while a further 6 per cent were flagged for further testing."

So while 28 percent is scandalous, and those companies need to face consequences, the other 72 percent seem to be genuine.

A big chunk of that 72% are legitimately labeled "Made in China" or niche brands. The brands that failed, plus the products that are actually labeled "Made in China", dominate Australia's four supermarkets with the majority of the market share. I've just done my weekly shop, so trawled their web sites looking for alternatives.

Summarising the Australian situation, taking the 4corners results into account, the following non-Chinese tomato pastes are available:

Coles (29% market share): 1 x 140g premium product in a tube (expensive with reduced market share) out of about 20 products.

Woolworths (38% market share): 1 x 140g premium product (Mutti) in a tube (expensive with reduced market share) out of about 20 products.

Aldi (10% market share): None out of about 4 products

IGA (7% market share): 5 of 16 products, being the same premium brands that Coles and Woolworths sell.

Maybe qualify my comment with "by market share and availability". The effect is that if you stand in front of an Australian supermarket shelf, every product, bar one or two in the corner, come from China. China is a proxy for Xianjing, in that sources say 80%-90% of tomato paste from China comes from Xinjiang.

Hence the assertion I made.

Market share data: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/supermarkets-inquiry_1....

Xianjing percentages: https://tomatonews.com/countries/china/

> Woolworths (38% market share): 1 x 140g premium product (Mutti) in a tube (expensive with reduced market share) out of about 20 products.

Eh ...

"Well-known tomato brands that passed country-of-origin testing include Mutti, SPC, Woolworths, Providore D'Italia and Annalisa. Diced tomato cans and passata from Leggo's and Coles also passed."

So here are 4 tomato pastes in woolworths that would seem to pass the test of not being from China and not being liars, just from a quick search (and I have seen all these in my local) -

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/290303/mut... https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/218066/mut... https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/901431/mac... https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/150875/pro...

I usually buy Mutti stuff because it's low-ish salt, and that claims to come from Italy and wasn't implicated in the report here. And while I understand those are at the 'premium' end, it's not like it's one product on the end of the shelf either.

It's true that "Leggo" occupies a lot of the shelf space and a lot of the cheaper 'own brand' stuff is labelled as coming from China. And coles appears to be in a weirder/worse spot that woollies, with only Providore being Italian and two brands of turkish tomato paste, which is interesting.

It's sad that I can't find an Australian tomato paste that isn't a liar.

So I'm still not fully on board with "nearly every", OTOH thanks for the further information. I shall continue to try to avoid these products!

The above thread was about quality issues, not ethical issues such as “slave labor” (a term somehow reserved for certain countries, even though most countries use unfree prison labor, including the US and much of the EU).

Our vocational training program, your prison labor, their slave labor.

It's about trust.

Difficult to distinguish between actual slave labour and China-is-bad propaganda.

Harm to the end user: none^

Benefits to the end user: more affordable tomato paste

Government action to prevent slave labour products entering Australia: none^

^close enough.

It is perfectly legal to sell Chinese tomatoes in Australia (which is not necessarily a good thing, re: forced labour in Italy and China). The fraud is mislabeling them as Australian or similar, denying consumers from making their own ethical choice. Which is your harm to the end user and generally enforced by the ACCC.

If you're going to start talking about mislabelling products, you're going doing a rabbit hole of hundreds if not thousands of products sold in reputable stores. Look up how FDA labels for Organic, Grass fed, Pasture raised, etc. are used through out the industry in the US and the world. You should also look up the requirements for "Made in X" labels for consumer products. Playing with word and people's emotions on what those labels mean when making a purchase decision is as old as commerce itself. Don't for a moment think of the US or a Western country being rightious about this.

How the FDA and US labels things is not relevant to Australia with its more consumer focused laws and the ACCC.

The information this is based on is reporting from the Australian ABC TV program Four Corners.

The ABC is a know, as in they don't even try to pretend propriety, propaganda outlet of the Australia Albanese federal Government.

I'm not saying this is definitely propaganda, but there's a non-zero chance it is.

The Albanese government has been very open about attacking industry.

It is anti-industry to report fraud and provide evidence to government enforcement bodies and shame them into acting? This is anti-government propaganda if anything, given the lack of proactive monitoring and serious enforcement. If anyone in politics benefits from this it will be One Nation or maybe the Nationals if they pick up on the Protect Australian Farmers angle, while sitting government gets to explain why they had failed to acknowledge the problem or act. The forced labor issue will be a particular thorn in their side, given it is one of the excuses for the latest round of US tariffs.

Negatives to end user: unknown pesticides or banned pesticides.

No propaganda - lack of validation, evidence and trust

What does slavery, real slavery or anti-China propaganda fake slavery, have to do with the with the presence or absence of pesticides, banned or otherwise?

Chinese workers earn more than workers from latin America. At least their government isn't slave for billionaires

We bought a Bosch dishwasher from Costco in January. It was defective and wouldn’t start after 10 days. Costco replaced it. The replacement came with a big gash on the front off the truck so we refused it and Costco sent a third replacement. Again, it was the same model and again it wouldn’t start after another 30 days. Costco took it back. No cost to us for any of these delivery or install attempts.

We bought a different model from Costco and it’s been rock solid. I expect I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer as long as Costco continues to care like they do today.

> I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer

Weird. You experienced failures of the manufacturer (failure to start) and the warehouse (huge scratch), and are still singing someone’s praises.

It sounds to me like the brand’s quality assurance is low and the retailer also isn’t taking care of their stock.

If I had to take three days off work to accept these deliveries, doubtless I would have a very different conclusion from yours.

He's singing the praises of CostCo, which made him whole.

Any dishwasher could have these problems; any warehouse could. How the seller handles the situation is key to whether you use them again.

CostCo has built a huge reputation for being trustworthy as a retailer. If they get purchased by private equity, I will stop renewing my membership, and think about how close the country is to decorating lampposts.

The issue is that with a sample size of one (or three), then it is basically bad luck. If you get a bad unit (or a good unit) it doesn't really tell you much how reliable the other 100,000+ units are and how reliable the brand is. If you have a product get damaged during delivery, it doesn't really tell you much how reliable the other 100,000+ deliveries are.

But most people have had a problem with some product they purchased and a company that stands by things and gives no questions asked support is very valuable.

Yep, I'm pretty much a lifetime member of Costco if this sort of prioritization doesn't change. A recent article put it well "Costco is the anti-Amazon".

I say this as a happy customer of both, though. I don't seem to have the problems others do with horrible products from Amazon, but I suspect my purchasing habits might be different as well.

> I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer

That's called stinking thinking.

No one means that in the literal sense BTW it is shorthand for.

"The next purchase I make will be through X to avoid having to search for a new retailer"

What is the alternative? Trust has been built, as long as the trust is not eroded it is safer than any other retailer?

I don’t disagree, Costco has a reputation for selling well vetted products, but that’s not a good comparison. I trust Costco (even their online only sales), but in no way do I trust the other merchants listed.

We’re specifically taking about merchants that have a super shady online presence. They will basically sell you anything and everything and don’t care if it harms you.

The ones mentioned (Amazon, Best Buy, New Egg), it’s going to be hard to argue they vet (or care about vetting) the digital products they sell. You might as well throw Walmart into group too, their online offerings have gotten super sketchy if you really do into it.

Target as well. It was one thing when it was just Amazon acting as a sketchy third party storefront, but now everybody’s doing it.

And third party listings on Walmart or Target (and throw eBay in here too) often end up being fulfilled by Amazon. These sellers just list their stuff on all the sites and effectively use Amazon as their drop shipper.

Compared to the big e-commerce retailers, Costco's total number of sku's isn't even a rounding error.

And most of Costco's sku's are food, clothing, housewares, bulk consumables, and such - vastly easier to test and vet than computer & internet-connected electronics.

Sounds like you're agreeing that Costco is well curated?

Compared to Amazon and other e-tailers with hundreds of thousands of sku's of computer & internet-connected electronic stuff, 99% of which they do nothing whatever to curate? Yes.

But that's kinda like saying that Random Pond is safer for swimming than a lava lake.

Do I just assume nothing can go wrong when I myself shop at Costco? NO.

Costco isn't perfect, and things slip through still.

For example: this is a minor annoyance, but comes readily to mind.

https://www.costco.com/p/-/orgain-organic-protein-and-superf...

The problem is labeling conventions leading to inaccurate assumptions of what's even IN that "protein powder"...

you would think the protein, being the largest in print, is the primary ingredient but no. A serving is 51grams, and the protein makes up 21grams of that serving: less than half, that's not a 'protein powder' if the primary ingredient isn't protein.

It should be labeled "SUPERFOODS with protein" not the other way around.

There have been other things similar in scope less readily recalled. It may seem minor to some... but labeling accuracy and transparency is something we had to fight for collectively.

A 51 g serving might contain 40 g of the protein blend, making it a protein powder as the primary ingredient is protein blend.

However, this is plant-based protein, not pure way isolate. A plant-based protein powder from mung beans for example isn't going to be 100% protein. Chickpea powder contains roughly 20% protein.

So I don't know if that helps at all, but it doesn't seem as bad as you and you might be suggesting.

Ingredients are listed in order from greatest to least amount. Protein is listed first. It seems it’s the creamer that throws off the ratio you’re looking at, which I’m assuming is there for consistency/taste.

The first ingredient is a plurality, not a majority.

I have to disagree, costco often has custom worse versions of better products, we recently had a costco air conditioner fail just to find out it wasn't built quite as robustly as the $50 more expensive midea sold elsewhere with an almost identical model number. Similarly had my costco GE washing machine fail last year right out of warranty. There's a real quality problem going on with costco right now.

They’ll replace them if they break and the return policy is very good as well. It’s safe to buy from Costco

arguably it's part of their main value proposition: bulk, but not terrible, and generally decent.

fixed fee membership also means a very stable revenue stream and they can take the time to do this, while other places like newegg are herding 3rd parties to get cuts of ever cheaper 3rd party crap

Reply on news.ycombinator.com