Costco’s meat is getting returned more often than people realize — Reddit users have thoughts

Apart from the big discounts, free food samples and a generous return policy, the key to Costco's success is the quality standards that it maintains. But lately, there has been a decline in the quality of certain food products that the retailer sells, and customers have consistently flagged it publicly. Most of the complaints have been against beef and chicken products.

According to a report in Mashed, Costco's chicken has been reported to be woody and rubbery, while beef is not properly marbled, contains too much bone, and is not trimmed well enough. Customers even seem to believe that the quality of ribeye has also dropped. While buying food products, especially meat, consumers expect them to be fresh, but Costco has been failing to meet those standards as well.

Shoppers have noted that some of the meat products are spoiled by the time they’ve been purchased. One of them took to Reddit to speak about how the deli turkey they had purchased had already gone bad. "I've been taking back a lot of meat that smells bad before the best-by date. Not sure if it's just a thing at my store, but I'm not paying $60 for a package of meat and throwing it away. It will stink up my fridge for a week,” they wrote in r/Costco.

The user added that they had emailed the retailer about the spoiled product and had received a gift card a few years ago. In a different Reddit post, another user said that Costco’s chicken is usually pretty bad. But one has to remember that the retailer is not the only one to blame for the poor quality of meat products that customers see on the shelves these days.

How cattle and poultry are raised also makes a lot of difference when it comes to the quality of meat. The Mashed report states that chickens are bred to grow faster, which means that they have a lot of muscle, leading to the chewy, rubbery texture. On the other hand, cattle are often bred on a poor diet, leading to lower-quality meat. About a month ago, the non-profit organisation called Farm Forward released a terrifying study about Costco’s chickens.

The retailer is supplied by Lincoln Premium Poultry, and the study stated that the chickens kept at this facility were often held in overcrowded conditions, which led to a lot of these birds suffering from visible injuries. This causes a risk of Salmonella, as the bacterium can be found in poorly handled or cooked poultry. The study also found multiple popular poultry brands had Salmonella levels much higher than federal safety limits in their chickens, and Costco’s supplier was one of those brands.

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