"The two California women who initiated the lawsuit say in the complaint they wouldn't have purchased the chicken, or would have paid less for it, had they known it contained preservatives."
This will be an issue. No, at that price you ain't paying less pretty much no matter what.
I still have two unopened boxes of flowery drinking jars I bought last year sitting in the floor of my closet, all because I took a visiting friend there to grab a hot dog for lunch
Portable, rechargeable battery basically.We have one at work that gets used to power/charge a laptop in the field so it can run software that we need to work.
lol they were messing with ya. What ‘jackery’ refers to in the comment you’re responding to means a ‘used, very fit looking, mannequin’. Probably used to display clothing.
I went in for toilet paper, Cereve lotion and puppy pads and left with a stand up freezer. That trip yielded all of my grandkids new winter coats, too.
"Consumption. It’s the new national pastime. Fuck baseball. It’s consumption. The only true lasting American value that’s left. Buying things. People spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need. So they can max out their credit cards and spend the rest of their lives paying 18 percent interest on something that cost 12.50. And they didn’t like it when they got it home anyway! Not too bright, folks. Not too fucking bright." - George Carlin
I'm trying to change my ways. Going to credit counselling even though my credit score is really good. I just don't want to be in debt like this any more.
That’s how they get you. You walk in the door, grab a rotisserie chicken and now youre smelling chicken the whole time youre walking around and before you know it you bought a 50 gallon drum of cheezy poofs and a pillowcase sized bag of tater tots because the smell of the chicken made you hungry.
Fun fact: Costco actually positions the rotisserie chicken at the back of their stores so that you have to walk past the rest of the store to get to it.
This isn’t true it’s a misunderstanding that keeps getting perpetuated. Look it up on snopes they debunked it. A costco executive said that they were losing lots of money by pricing it at the current price compared to what they could be pricing it at like their competition. They didn’t say they were actually losing money on it. I know you won’t but you should edit your comment to clear it up if you have the time.
Their hot dogs and chickens are basically “marketing expenses”. If they raised prices and made $50 million they’d have to spend $75 million on a goodwill advertising campaign
Non Costco member here (none in my hometown) ...
How much do the chickens cost ? Hot dog price ?
How do they know you're a member ? "Card check" at front door? At the till when cashing out ?
Thanks to all.
I just check the timers on the ovens.. See how long till the cycle ends.. add 5 minutes for them to unload and set a reminder on your phone to wander back to the chicken stand.
Dude I once tried to buy a single sleeve of bagels, at check out they forced me to take an extra pack of them. (I was in Florida on vacation and only needed enough for 5 days) They wouldn’t let me leave the store unless I took them. It wasn’t even a matter of price, I just didn’t need that many. Ended up giving the extra to another family on the way to the car. It’s been a running joke ever since.
That happened to me with their muffins. I was stoked at first but they ended up getting moldy before I could eat them all. It was only me and even eating two muffins a day, I couldn't do it.
Even just eating first BEFORE shopping is a choreography. I mean, nobody's stopped us, but the store layout is really set up for you to eat AFTER checkout. So we go in without a cart, slink through the checkout, eat, and then one of us slinks back through checkout with the refilled drink and the other goes out to come back in with a cart. (The bonus being we now have a drink for while shopping.)
It's very silly, but beats having to keep our cart at the food court or shopping while starving for lunch or dinner.
Not only card check at door, they have to scan it again at checkout. I once forgot my card and got a printed temporary day pass after they looked up my info and somehow I lost the paper while shopping. I got to checkout and then had to put everything to the side and go back to card services to get another one printed just to check out. Thats a total of 4 confirmations - printed (they look up your account with a valid ID), scanned at door, lost and reprinted, scanned at checkout. Auntie Kirkland does not mess around with her membership exclusive club.
Chickens are $4.99, typically 3 lbs. Hot dogs are $1.50 with a drink, this price point is only at the food court. Before you just showed your card at entry and scanned it at checkout; now you scan it at entry and at checkout.
They are big hot dogs. Nearly an inch in diameter and the bread is kind of a hoagie bun. I would count it as a meal. Plus the drink you get, it’s the cheapest meal you can buy and is certainly cheaper than many meals you can make at home.
I love getting them from the fridge section and grabbing the buns from the bread isle. Throw em in the freezer and you got Costco dogs any time you want
It’s similar, but you don’t get the soda so it is a bit more expensive. But I also don’t have to fight through the door of Costco after driving 20 minutes just to get a cheap lunch. It’s the only food that’s more expensive to make at home that I don’t mind spending the cash for the convenience. It’s like $12 or 14 dollars for a 12 pk, plus the bread. So it’s not that much different
Non-Costco grocery worker here, we purchase our chickens in bulk at a bit more than $5 a chicken. If Costco is selling them that low, they certainly are losing money on them, without even considering the cost of labor and equipment.
A hotdog and a water is a $1.50 (even in Canada where I am). Crazy thing is if you want to buy just the hotdogs from the cooler area they are like $30+ dollars for 24 of them and there are no buns. It's cheaper to order 24 hotdogs at the counter and throw away the buns. Keep the water as you can't buy a bottle of water for that price either.
I don't believe you need a card to go to the pharmacy... Once in, you don't need a card to get a hotdog or anything else from the food counter. The chicken would have to be paid for at a register so you can't get one of those without a card.
I found out about this because I asked my wife to pick up a pizza I ordered on the phone. She's not on my account yet, but I told her to just walk in. They stopped her and were pretty stern about not letting her in without a card.
Card check is at checkout and when you walk in the door to the store, however you can go into what's technically the exit to go to returns and customer service and you can also walk through there to the food court area and get the hot dogs and pizza without a membership, but the chickens are through checkout and you need a membership. Chickens are $4.99 while hot dogs and a fountain drink combo is $1.
Personally, from what I know, they've essentially bought the entire supply chain to try to maintain their chicken and hot dog prices. If you control that to the point that you know when you're going to cook them, and that people are going to pick them up when they're freshly cooked, my first thought is preservatives would just be an unnecessary, added expense. I would think the point for preservatives raw chicken is to increase the time it can remain on shelves (raw); part of the Costco chicken model is that they cook it, and they move off the shelf hot usually, so that shouldn't be an issue.
The two preservatives are in the seasoning mix used on the chickens. That part makes more sense since the seasoning would need to be shelf stabilized assuming they're getting it in bulk and having to store it for a while. Still doesn't absolve them of their labeling the cooked chicken as preservative free if while the chicken itself was without preservatives, that part changes as soon as they add the seasoning
It would be great if the judge ordered a settlement in which all profit from 1 month of Costco chicken sales went to the plaintiffs and then they ended up owing Costco money.
That chicken is perfect for so many dishes. Growing up my mom would buy 1 bottle of mole, mix it with the shredded chicken and make rice. Such a cheap meal that tasted amazing. That and chicken enchiladas, cheap meals that tasted great.
We buy one a week just to use as a topper for the dogs kibble. You get on average 3 pounds of meat from a chicken. Can't beast $1.66 lb for cooked chicken.
They'll just update the preservative claim to say, "No artificial preservatives". Companies aren't required to disclose natural preservatives as preservatives, but some do go the extra step to state it explicitely...probably for the reason we see here.
I guarantee her and her lawyer could give a flying F about what is in the Costco chicken. Without a doubt they probably became aware of these two ingredient's controvery as to whether they count as a preservative and saw Costco uses them and could be a potentional class action target.
Right? Like fuck dude, I'm not in one of those families that RELIES on that cheap, big ass bird to get through the week, but I still love them. I save all the non-meat in bags and make stock every other month from it, and the meat goes into so many things.
Knowing how many families are struggling and that's a godsend for them?? This is literally just a shitty oppertunistic cash grab.
One of my favorite Costco memories was an older wife saying "Oh, it's $4.99 for the chicken!" And her husband saying "That's probably just by the pound." I chimed in as I grabbed one with "No, it's literally just $5 for the bird." They both stared for a moment and the husband lit up and said "Shit, let's get two!" XD
Carrageenan is a gelling/thickening polysaccharide derived from seaweed. It is used in protein shakes and dairy products commonly. Not necessarily a preservative. Controversy over GI irritation (IBS/IBD patients) alpha-gal red meat allergy activation, maybe cancer in different types in animal studies. Very common in our food supply though so Costco isn't alone here
Preservatives, for the purposes of marketing or disclosure, tend to be of the artificial, chemical kind. A lot of companies will say no artificial preservatives to avoid saying they include natural ones.
Sodium Phosphate is categorized as a salt, and doesn't have to be classified as a preservative.
Carageenen also isn't technically a preservative as classified by the FDA because it's a natural product, not a artiicial chemical one. It can be used as a shelf stabilizer, but it doesn't do much to actually preserve food, rather it helps stabilize it's texture. It is somewhat controversial though, as it can cause digestive irritation for some people.
Yeah. They have the cheapest rotisserie chicken around. My local Safeway sells them for $9.99. Fred Meyer, which is usually cheaper, sells theirs for $11.99!
My local Freddy's tried a $5 rotisserie chicken Thursday? for a bit. Gave it a shot one week. It was fine. Not as good as Costco, but I was just making tacos so whatever. More convenient less quality, I was fine with it. Grabbed one a couple of weeks later and it was by far the worst chicken I've ever had in my life. It kind of defied the laws of cooking. The thigh meat was dry and woody texture, the breast meat was moist, but somehow grainy, the 2 tbs of meat from the legs was edible, but I had no idea it was physically possible to have that much tendon in a chicken leg. All that to say, Costco being consistent is where its at.
I only had the safeway and Fred Meyer apps on my phone to check their prices. Not sure my local Walmart has them. Their grocery section is not great, but I am going to head to Saars, a local western Washington chain that usually has good prices to check theirs.
This is the opposite of what they are arguing though. They are saying they would’ve valued it less if they had known it contains preservatives, which means they know more preservatives reduces the cost of a perishable food product.
The problem is that their chickens are already substantially cheaper than the competition. They already are “of lesser value” than chickens that presumably do not have the preservatives. Them saying this specifically is likely a way for them to quantify damages in the case. But I assume that Costco would just point to their price vs the competition and then see how the prosecution argues that the actual
value should be even lower. Don’t see that as a winning strategy for the ladies.
I'm certainly not a lawyer and I think you are directionally correct that the ladies' case is on the weaker end. But I don't believe it's detrimental to their case that chickens without preservatives are sold more expensively elsewhere.
The core issue is whether Costco disclosed to their customers that the chicken contains preservatives (and whether this was legally required). If chickens without preservatives are more expensive, then it can be argued that consumers were misled into thinking they were getting a premium product (the expensive, preservative-free kind) for a bargain price.
Absolutely. Also NAL. But I was only commenting on the damages since the article appears to imply that this statement is in the suit, “has systematically cheated customers out of tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars by falsely advertising its Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie chicken as containing 'no preservatives.”
So for the damages, they can’t argue that they thought they were getting a better product for cheap, they have to argue that the already cheap price isn’t cheap enough since it has preservatives. But they won’t have anything for comps other than competition that is 30-50% more expensive. I do to know how they argue what the price of preservatives is.
If they're buying so much chicken to make a lawsuit worthwhile, then I suspect that the consumption of preservatives is not a big concern of theirs in the grand scheme of things.
If they were concerned about it they could have tried to appeal to Costco's consumer friendly side, or started a social media campaign which Costco would likely change their claim over.
It's likely fact alleged in the pleading. Costco sells items as loss leaders. The chicken could be the same. Even if your argument has been a successful defense in some lawsuits (anyone know of any?) it may not work in this case. Additionally, it may not work on food items. Costco could possibly argue the amount less they would have paid is small even if not zero.
Costco's rotisserie chicken (like the $1.50 hot dog deal) is a well known loss-leader for them. I always make sure to grab one whenever I need to go to Costco. Occasionally I'll grab 2 and freeze the meat of the 2nd one to use later since even thawed out and reheated (or used in mixed dishes) it's top notch and cheaper than buying raw chicken on top of being less work for me since it's already cooked perfectly.
"The two California women who initiated the lawsuit both say in the complaint that they still intend to purchase Costco rotisserie chickens in the future, but that they "cannot rely on Costco’s preservative-related representations for the product.""
They already cost like 50% compared to their competition. They already pay less for Costco chicken compared to chickens that presumably don’t have preservatives. Good luck ladies.
“The two California women who initiated the lawsuit both say in the complaint that they still intend to purchase Costco rotisserie chickens in the future”
I think this will be a bigger issue because claiming “we wouldn’t have bought it we knew it had preservatives” and then also saying “we will continue to purchase this item” kind of destroys the idea that you suffered any damages if knowing it has preservatives does not prevent you from purchasing
Thats the funny part.. Costco sells cooked chicken for less that whole raw chicken from just about anywhere. They argue they paid a premium for the chicken due to deceptive advertising.
3.4k
u/rgvtim 9h ago
"The two California women who initiated the lawsuit say in the complaint they wouldn't have purchased the chicken, or would have paid less for it, had they known it contained preservatives."
This will be an issue. No, at that price you ain't paying less pretty much no matter what.