Which Holiday Gift Basket From Costco Has The Best Value?

Food-filled gift baskets are a thoughtful gift idea for that person who might already have everything. This type of present is filled with tasty edible components, so it won't sit around taking up space forever. If you're not so close with the recipient — like distant family, a coworker, or a neighbor — a gift basket is a safe, but considerate, way to show your gratitude without having to know their taste very well. For some of the best-value gift baskets, head to Costco to snag one of these seasonal items.

There are a ton of tempting options at Costco for a delicious holiday gift, and Chowhound did some research for you to make the decision easier. Using factors like pricing, product variety, quality, and customer reviews, a brand we particularly liked on Costco's website was The Fruit Company. The combination of fresh fruits and packaged gourmet foods is something we found desirable, as many of the other gift baskets contained only dry, packaged items. 

It was a challenge to choose between the multiple options that The Fruit Company offered. On Costco's website, there are tiered gift boxes with several different sizes, a charcuterie box, a season's greetings box, and more. Ultimately, Chowhound selected The Fruit Company Holiday Celebration 8 Gift Box Tower as the best value gift basket. It's a well-balanced mix of healthy fruit and decadent chocolate, including a medley of sweet and salty components, all wrapped up in festive gift boxes.

When buying a gift basket for someone you don't know so well, or for a family, it's nice to have a little of something for everyone. For the healthy snackers, this selection includes Royal Comice pears, red and green Anjou pears, Fuji apples, and salted roasted nuts. Pears and apples might sound boring, but these are the cream of the crop from Hood River, Oregon – a region with incredible growing conditions that produce some of the best pears in the world. The Royal Comice pear, sometimes referred to as the Christmas pear, is super sweet and juicy, and it is at its peak during the start of the holiday season. 

The other decadent food products included in the collection are also crafted in Oregon, from the caramel cashew crunch popcorn to truffle chocolate bars. You can also find chocolate-covered fruits, pretzels, and cookies. There are multiple chocolate types in this basket, so, again, it has something for everyone. 

The construction of this gift basket is lovely too. We're accustomed to seeing a literal basket stuffed to the brim with gourmet treats, but this one is different. The 8 boxes are colorful gift boxes with a variety of patterns stacked on top of each other and tied together with a satin ribbon. The final product looks like a wrapped present you might find under the Christmas tree. As an added bonus, the boxes can be reused for packaging future gifts. 

Trying to decide on which gift basket is the "best" is rather subjective, so we'll use numbers to explain why The Fruit Company Holiday Celebration 8 Gift Box Tower has the best value compared to the others. We'll start with the rating. This basket received an impressive 4.7-star rating from 5226 reviews. Positive reviews agree that the fruit is fresh and sweet, while the packaged treats taste high quality. 

Now, we'll break down the pricing. Like other boxes from The Fruit Company, when the 8-box tower is purchased from Costco's website, a $19.99 discount is applied that is valid until 12/31/2024. This knocks the price down from $69.99 to $49.99. While this discount is not the greatest compared to the discounts on the other tiered boxes, it still makes it a great deal. Next, if you divide the total price by the number of boxes, the 8-box tower has the lowest price per individual box, while still providing a great diversity of products. Each box in the tower is valued at $6.25 when the total discount price is divided by 8 boxes. The other tiered towers range from $7 to $8.33 per box. 

Another point: 8 is an even number, so you can divide this basket into two equal gifts. The whole gift basket of 8 boxes is quite generous, but this selection has enough diversity and volume of product to divide it up into two smaller presents. 

We appreciated the impressive 4.7-star rating of this basket, but we also wanted to check the negative ones in case there was anything to be cautious of. A few customers warned that the listed shipping window was inexact. Costco's website states the package "arrives approximately 3 to 5 business days from time of order." The "approximately" is key here. Some customers reported that the boxes arrived a day or two after they expected, which ended up being inconvenient for the Thanksgiving holiday.  

Aside from the delivery time, another consideration is the fresh components of the box. If sending this for the holidays, ensure the recipient is in town before shipping to them. The other products, like the pretzels, nuts, and chocolates would be fine sitting for a few days, but it would be tragic to open up a gift basket with mushy or moldy pears. Costco allows you to select a preferred arrival date, stating that the first available date to select will be 5 days after the date of order. It's ideal to order early, and coordinate with your gift recipient when the present should arrive. 

Important note: This basket, along with many others, is only available to order online. Costco's physical locations do have some notable holiday goods worth snagging. The wine advent calendar is a must, and, for something a bit smaller, the retailer also offers some great stocking stuffers.