What Company Makes Costco's Kirkland Brand Vanilla Ice Cream?

When it comes to store brands, Costco's Kirkland Signature products are unrivaled. The wholesaler is beloved by its devoted members thanks to its great deals on bulk goods, from toilet paper to bottled water, enormous warehouses, and food court offerings. Even the famous $1.50 hot dog and soda combo deal uses Kirkland brand beef franks, which the retailer manufactures itself. Clearly, Costco is committed to keeping prices low and quality high on its private-label items, which the company started selling in 1995. The Kirkland Signature Super Premium Vanilla Ice Cream is no exception.

While you can make ice cream at home without a machine or find it at any grocery store, Costco's vanilla ice cream is stellar. Great on its own and in milkshakes, it boasts a fairly sweet and rich vanilla flavor that puts most other brands to shame (yes, even Ben & Jerry's) and a dense yet smooth and creamy texture that holds up well out of the freezer. After all, it's not named "Super Premium" for nothing. And in true bulk fashion, the ice cream is sold by the gallon; each package comes with two ½-gallon cartons to satisfy even the sweetest tooth for weeks. However, while many shoppers may be familiar with this product, not everyone knows who makes the Kirkland brand vanilla ice cream. Even though Costco sells the sweet stuff with the iconic red, black, and white branding, this ice cream is supplied by a California creamery with a penchant for quality organic dairy: Humboldt Creamery.

As the country's largest grower of foods from almonds to spinach, California is undeniably productive in feeding the nation. Also a major dairy producer, it's not too surprising that the state's north coast is home to one of the largest ice cream producers in the western U.S. Founded in 1929 as an agricultural marketing cooperative, Humboldt Creamery has been making Kirkland Super Premium Vanilla Ice Cream since 2006. The company also provided the milk for the store's food court ice cream bars until Costco discontinued the bars in 2013.

Since milk seems to be in everything good, the quality of milk itself should be highly valued. In an interview with the North Coast Journal in 2006, Rich Ghilarducci, former CEO of Humboldt Creamery, expressed that Costco "believe[s] the flavor of the milk from Humboldt County is something very special." A decade later, Mike Callihan, Humboldt Creamery's plant manager, re-emphasized the point in an interview with Dairy Foods, crediting the impact of the region's six rivers on its dairy quality. With most dairying in the area done along a river, cows spend most of the year grazing on grass grown in mineral-rich soil carried downstream from the mountains. As with wine, the soil, climate, and topography — factors of the natural environment referred to as terroir — can affect milk's taste. In addition to organic farming practices, Humboldt County's rainy climate — averaging over 60 inches of precipitation annually, according to USA Facts – keeps the rivers flowing, the land lush, the cows happy, and the ice cream delicious.

While Costco does manufacture its own hot dogs, there are a few other Kirkland brand products supplied by companies you may already know and love. For instance, Costco's private-brand canned tuna is made by Bumble Bee, a staple supplier of canned and snack tuna that's also founded on the Pacific coast. That bag of Kirkland Signature House Blend Medium Roast coffee beans? For years, it was roasted by Starbucks. (The coffee's current producer remains a mystery, though some believe Starbucks may still be behind it.)

As in most grocery stores, buying the store brand version of an item at Costco generally saves customers money. Even though Humboldt Creamery makes Costco's vanilla ice cream, the retailer sometimes carries it in the manufacturer's packaging, too. It usually costs several dollars more than the Kirkland brand option despite the fact that they're the same products sitting next to each other in the freezer. So besides having the satisfaction of knowing who makes Kirkland Signature canned tuna or ice cream, the knowledge might just save you money while shopping.