Why Costco's Food Court Chicken Bakes Have Gone Downhill

Costco is technically a wholesale store, but its greatest claim to fame for many customers is as an eatery. The Costco food court has achieved legendary status with its famous pizza and inflation-resistant hot dogs. It attracts scores of fans to every social media platform, holding up Costco's low food court prices as a beacon of hope in an era where good food at affordable prices seems harder and harder to come by. In recent years, however, that fervent fandom has taken to the internet to call out Costco for suspected changes to one particular food court offering: the chicken bake.

In 2022, Costco had customers up in arms when they raised the price of chicken bakes by a dollar, but even before that, the quality of the product was trending downhill. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, rumors have spread online that Costco's chicken bakes were getting smaller, and were dry and bland compared to their former selves. These rumors were seemingly confirmed in a Reddit thread where a Costco employee explained that the food courts originally made chicken bakes from scratch on-site each morning, but had since switched to using 40-packs of frozen chicken bakes.

The reason for Costco's food courts switching over to frozen chicken bakes is unclear. In another Reddit thread, commenters opined that the chicken wrap was a victim of shrinkflation, the phenomenon in which food companies keep prices relatively low, but shrink the portion size of products to keep profits high. The new bakes are smaller and have less filling inside; however, they are not the same as the Kirkland frozen chicken bakes found in the retail section of the warehouse. Those are even smaller and are easily distinguished by the addition of green onions.

Information about who supplies Costco with its chicken bakes is not public knowledge, and nobody seems to like them enough to bother finding out, but there are two likely possibilities. Costco's food court hot dogs are made by the retailer, but its Kirkland brand frozen pizza is made by an outside company, so it could go either way. However, seeing as the chicken bake is exclusive to Costco, and no product quite like it can be found elsewhere, it seems most likely that they are also made by the retailer, just no longer freshly on-site. If so, it is in Costco's best business interest to keep the production costs low, though only time will tell if customers will accept the change and maintain Costco's food court profits.