Is It Possible To Buy Sushi-Grade Salmon At Costco?

When making a dish that calls for raw salmon, such as ceviche or a colorful poke bowl, it's important to buy sushi-grade fish for the occasion. This is fish that's been deemed safe for raw consumption, because no, not all fish is created equal, and there are more varieties that need to be cooked first than those you can eat raw. Luckily, most grocery chains do offer some form of sushi-grade fish, and many people buy their salmon from the grocery store. From Whole Foods to Fresh Market,it's normally not too inconvenient of a protein to find. But does Costco have it too?

The popular warehouse chain has something for every shopper, and a lot of people say it pays to buy salmon from Costco thanks to its affordability, but is the salmon sushi-grade? Unfortunately, the answer isn't as black and white as yes or no. Costco does sell "sashimi quality" fish, but that's not quite the same thing as sushi or sashimi-grade. Still, not one of these terms has a concrete definition, anyway. 

Sushi-grade fish is an unregulated term, meaning the Food and Drug Administration does not have clear regulations as to what exactly deems fish safe to eat raw. Most sellers identify their fish as safe raw if it is the freshest catch they have available and handled with special care to prevent food-borne illnesses. Still, individual sellers of the fish can set sushi-grade regulations themselves, so just how safe the fish is to eat depends on the expectations of the seller.

If you're buying salmon to eat raw, it's ideal to sure that it's either super fresh or has been flash-frozen. Flash-frozen fish is caught and preserved at peak freshness under intense temperature conditions that will kill off any lingering bacteria. This freezing process is what the FDA recommends sellers to do with fish being produced for raw consumption, but again, the choice still lies in the hands of the seller. While Costco's sashimi quality salmon is frozen to retain its freshness, it doesn't say flash-frozen on the package specifically, so it's hard to know what type of freezing process it went through or what the quality is really like.

While some packages of fish have terms like sashimi quality and sushi-grade stamped on them, these terms are largely marketing tactics. So even if Costco does sell salmon with the term "sashimi quality" stamped onto the package, that's an unregulated, ambiguous phrase, and there's no way of knowing for sure what it really means.

If you're wary of buying fish without knowing what procedures were followed to ensure it's safe to eat, that's understandable. To really know that the fish you're eating is safe, it's best to go straight to a fishmonger instead of a grocery store. A fishmonger can answer any questions you have about what type of salmon is safe to eat raw and why. They might recommend buying farm-raised salmon instead of wild-caught, as they might have more knowledge about the conditions the fish were exposed to compared to the wild ones. Fishmongers can also tell you about the exact process in which they prepared the fish, and identify which catches are the best for your needs. (Hint: For sushi, you should pick salmon that looks the most vibrant and smells purely like the ocean.)

At the end of the day, infections from fish deemed "sashimi quality" or "sushi-grade" are very rare, so there's no need to have outsized fear about it. If you're already headed to Costco, there's no harm in checking out their salmon offerings — just take the marketing terms on the packaging with a grain of salt.