Some Costco Customers Aren’t Thrilled About a Change to Its Rotisserie Chicken
The $4.99 staple’s packaging has gotten a makeover.
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When it comes to loss leaders — products sold way under their value to draw in customers — Costco just might be the king.
Consider its $1.50 hot dog and soda combo that has stayed at the same price point since it was first introduced in 1984 (and won’t be changing anytime soon). Then, of course, there’s the warehouse chain’s Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken, a staple of exhausted, post-Costco run dinners at just $4.99 per three-pound bird. It’s so popular that, in 2019, the company even opened up its own poultry plant to self-source its low-cost product.
While nothing is changing about the chicken’s price — which has remained, with rare exception, $4.99 since 2009 — customers have noticed one significant difference: The packaging.
In March of 2024, Costco announced it would be shifting away from the practically iconic plastic clamshell packaging for its chickens and switching to sealable plastic bags. And as of June, for many locations in the U.S., that day had already arrived.
Customers have not only taken notice, some have taken issue with the new packaging change which they view as subpar when it comes to transporting and keeping the heated, whole chicken leak-free. A search of the r/Costco page on Reddit finds multiple complaints about the bagged chickens, including one poster claiming to be a Costco employee who said that even Costco’s own deli workers dislike using them compared to the clamshells as well. One commenter even said the new packaging was already causing them to buy the chickens less frequently.
But Costco has its reasons. Each of the new bags utilizes 75-percent less plastic than one of the original shell containers. Considering that, as the Seattle Times reports, Costco sold 137 million rotisserie chickens worldwide in 2023, it adds up to a lot of plastic. And Costco isn’t alone, aside from the fact that its Canada locations have used the bags for years, many competing national and regional supermarket chains also already utilize plastic bags for their own whole-roasted chickens.
However, if you’re a regular stroller among the extra-wide aisle at Costco, you’ll have noticed that while the middle of the store often swaps in new and exciting items with each season, those tall, scaffold-like shelves are usually stocked with the same mainstays week after week. So when a beloved product disappears or makes a major change, Costco members are going to have opinions.
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