Stores like Costco are beloved by loyal, sometimes rabid, fans.
And this week, those fans found another reason to love their favorite bulk grocer -- beyond $1.50 hot dog combos and free samples of cut-up taquitos.
In the days following a massive fruit recall, the membership-based warehouse retailer actually called customers to tell them to toss their potentially Listeria-tainted peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots.
Costco customers who appreciated the call posted on Facebook:
Grocers typically try to warn customers about recalled food, but Costco and other large retailers have an edge on your corner store: These big chains know exactly which customers to warn.
You can thank the creep of Big Data for that. Large retailers amass tons of information about customer buying habits. Big box giant Target caught flack a few years ago for doing this so well that it actually knew a customer was pregnant before she told anyone the news.
In the case of the tainted stone fruit, all that disturbing data mining came in handy.
After a California fruit packing company announced a possible Listeria contamination in stone fruits sold at several major grocery chains, Costco took just one day to use the data it collects on its members to create a list of all the customers who could have purchased the potentially dangerous fruit. (The full list of affected items can be found here.)
Plums were one of the fruits recalled by the California company.
Any time one of Costco's approximately 70 million members buys something, the company logs the item number of the product they purchased, explained Craig Wilson, vice president of quality assurance and food safety at Costco.
"We know every item that everybody purchases every day," Wilson told HuffPost. "If there's an issue with an item -- be it ground beef, peaches, socks or tires -- we can contact the members that purchased the item, because we have a record of that purchase."
Costco mailed "hundreds of thousands" of letters to follow up on the phone calls, said Wilson.
The retailer has been using shopper data in similar situations "for a really long time," he said. Costco shopper data helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identify salami that sickened people during a salmonella outbreak in 2010, according to a report from The Denver Post.
Wegmans, the beloved Northeastern grocery chain, isn't membership-based like Costco, but it was also able to use data from its Shoppers Club loyalty cards to identify customers at tainted-fruit risk, Jeanne Colleluori, a spokeswoman for the chain, told The Huffington Post.
Calls went out to shoppers in all six states where Wegmans operates its 84 stores, Colleluori said.
A woman shops at a Wegmans in Fairfax, Virginia on Feb. 24, 2011.
Wegmans uses guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration to determine whether a recall is severe enough to warrant diving into its loyalty card data to send out calls to customers, she said.
"We don't look at specific customers and what they are purchasing, we look at the information in bulk form," Colleluori said. "The only exception to that is in the case of product recalls."
For online grocer FreshDirect, things were even easier. Customers who use the service naturally create a record of what they buy when they place orders on the company's website, so it was simple to figure out who had purchased the recalled fruit. Fresh Direct sent out email alerts and called customers, along with placing notices about the recall on its website and mobile app.
While many customers were happy to get the phone calls and emails, some complained that the retailers did too little, too late:
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
It's Another Trump-Biden Showdown — And We Need Your Help
The Future Of Democracy Is At Stake
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Your Loyalty Means The World To Us
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
The 2024 election is heating up, and women's rights, health care, voting rights, and the very future of democracy are all at stake. Donald Trump will face Joe Biden in the most consequential vote of our time. And HuffPost will be there, covering every twist and turn. America's future hangs in the balance. Would you consider contributing to support our journalism and keep it free for all during this critical season?
HuffPost believes news should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for it. We rely on readers like you to help fund our work. Any contribution you can make — even as little as $2 — goes directly toward supporting the impactful journalism that we will continue to produce this year. Thank you for being part of our story.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
It's official: Donald Trump will face Joe Biden this fall in the presidential election. As we face the most consequential presidential election of our time, HuffPost is committed to bringing you up-to-date, accurate news about the 2024 race. While other outlets have retreated behind paywalls, you can trust our news will stay free.
But we can't do it without your help. Reader funding is one of the key ways we support our newsroom. Would you consider making a donation to help fund our news during this critical time? Your contributions are vital to supporting a free press.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our journalism free and accessible to all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you'll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.
Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.