Who Makes Costco's Kirkland Brand Greek Yogurt?

Kirkland Signature, the in-house Costco brand you'll see all over its warehouse-sized stores, sells a wide variety of goods, from Kirkland Signature maple syrup to Kirkland Signature spiced rum. Costco can sometimes be tight-lipped about which manufacturers actually make these products — but the wholesaler often works with other large brands that produce them, and then labels the products in-store as Kirkland Signature. (For example, at least some Kirkland Signature coffee was produced by Starbucks for years.) Costco's Kirkland Signature Greek yogurt, which is sold in big three-pound tubs, is one of those products the company has never outright stated the producer of. There's some evidence pointing to a specific yogurt-making culprit, however.

It's very possible that Ehrmann, a sizable German yogurt brand, is the company that produces Kirkland Signature Greek yogurt. Even though neither Costco nor Ehrmann has ever claimed as much, the companies have hardly been secretive either. Ehrmann announced back in a 2014 press release that it was releasing a new strained Greek yogurt which would be distributed at Costco stores around San Francisco before expanding its yogurt nationwide. Businessman Peter Cohan, who runs the venture capital firm Peter S. Cohan & Associates, also claimed in his 2017 book "Disciplined Growth Strategies" that Ehrmann sells Greek yogurt to Costco under brand labels like Kirkland Signature.

Ehrmann is originally a German dairy company which was founded in 1920. It completed construction on an American production location in Vermont in 2011, just a few years before its Costco partnership began (Ehrmann does business under the name Commonwealth Dairy in the United States). Outside of Costco, Ehrmann owns various yogurt brands such as Yoginos Greek yogurt and Lacto Zero fruit yogurts, and its Vermont branch runs its own brands like Green Mountain Creamery. A portion of Ehrmann yogurt made in Vermont is then sold to other companies under private labels. Besides supplying to Costco (though, again, Erhmann has never specified that the yogurt it supplies to Costco is labeled as Kirkland Signature), the Vermont facility also supplies yogurt to Wegmans, which could likely be the plain Greek yogurt sold under Wegman's own in-house brand.

No matter its brand or where it's sold, Ehrmann Greek yogurt is fairly standard plain, non-fat yogurt. It can be eaten plain, or used as a mayo substitute or dressing. It's also one of the main ingredients in tzatziki and vegetable dips. Greek yogurt lasts one or two weeks in the fridge, so don't worry about buying those 3-pound bulk tubs that Costco sells — you'll have time to finish it.