14 Food Recalls That Will Always Haunt Costco

We come to Costco for the bulk items, and we stay for the food. Although the store is well known for its food items that people absolutely love, the sheer variety of things that are available at Costco might surprise even the most frequent shopper. However, with all of that selection comes opportunities for things to go wrong, and Costco has been plagued by recalls as much as any other store. The difference when it comes to this warehouse giant, though, is that it's often not just having to chase down small amounts of items. Because it operates on a big-box model, its recalls can spiral into massive quantities of stock, leaving the chain significantly out of pocket.

What isn't different about Costco recalls are the reasons that it asks for its stock back. As with other stores, Costco stock can be subject to contamination from various types of dangerous bacteria that work their way into the food at some point in the production process. It can also be contaminated with alien materials like metal and plastic (yuck). One thing that might be a comfort to Costco shoppers, though, is that the store has also been known to recall items because it simply doesn't think they're good enough. Let's check out some of the worst recalls Costco's had to deal with.

Cooked, frozen, and breaded chicken patties are some of the most reliable ingredients around: You know what they taste like, you know how to cook them, and you know what they'll feel like when you bite into them. What you probably don't expect when you eat a chicken patty, though, is a mouthful of plastic. Unfortunately, that became a reality in 2022, when Costco received complaints from customers that their Foster Farms chicken patties, which were sold at the store, had pieces of hard, clear plastic in them.

The good news was that while customers were likely pretty disgusted by the discovery, nobody was injured. However, the Food Safety and Inspection Service decided that the pieces may be sharp and therefore harmful, and so announced a recall for the product. Because this was a Costco item, the patties were sold in packs of 20. Add to that a large amount of stock already sold, and the recall came to a massive 148,000 pounds of product in total. We're willing to bet Costco had some pretty stern words with its supplier after that.

Mislabeling is a massive issue for supermarkets, and it's more common than you think — and can often lead to some potentially disastrous consequences. In 2023, it was Costco's turn to go through a mislabeling mishap. Pots of Ellenos Real Greek Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt that were sold at Costco in 12-packs, had to be recalled because they had undeclared eggs in them. This posed a pretty serious issue for individuals who might have egg allergies, and so the store scrambled to get its stock back.

It's pretty reasonable not to expect yogurt to have egg in it, and so we don't blame people for assuming that their yogurts would be free from it. However, the problem lay in the fact that certain individual cups of the Vanilla Bean Yogurt were containing the wrong product. People found that instead of smooth white yogurt with flecks of vanilla bean, their pots of yogurt actually contained a lemon curd flavor. It was that lemon curd flavor that had egg in it, which may have led to some serious results. Thankfully, at the time of the recall, nobody had reported any illness as a result of eating the yogurt.

One of the biggest fears a store can have is selling contaminated products, and at Costco it's happened a fair few items. One particular instance way back in 1998 was especially troublesome. Costco had to recall a huge amount of frozen beef that year due to fears that it could be contaminated with E. coli. Well, not just fears exactly: It was contaminated. The recall was prompted after a New York woman became sick with an E. coli infection after eating one of the ground beef products, and was impacted enough to be hospitalized.

While Costco had recalled items before this, what set this event apart was that it was an own-brand item. Previously, Costco had mainly recalled third-party items it sold in its stores, allowing it to maintain a sense of not bearing the total responsibility. When the recall was announced it caused a flurry of concerned calls from customers wanting to check whether the information on their packages of beef matched those being recalled. They were right to do so, as the beef had been shipped to 24 individual states, with 172,000 pounds of product being recalled overall.

We all love dark chocolate-covered blueberries, but if you were buying them from Costco back in 2021 then we'd imagine you might love them a little bit less — especially if you had a tree nut allergy. Costco had to put out a recall for Torn Ranch Organic Dark Chocolate Blueberries sold in its stores due to the potential for tree nuts, and specifically almonds, to be in the product. This allergen wasn't declared on any packaging, leading Costco to fear that people with allergies could eat them and experience a serious reaction.

Given that the product didn't contain any almonds whatsoever, it's natural that customers probably didn't check the label too thoroughly for their presence without buying them. However, it appears that cross-contamination might have been the cause of this recall. This can occur far easier than you might think: If these blueberries were sharing space or a production line with almond-containing products, or were even being stored close to almonds, then cross-contamination was entirely possible. Given that Torn Ranch makes a number of nut products, it's likely that its items all use the same production facility.

One of the best things about buying nuts at Costco is that you can largely avoid the wild mark-ups that smaller bags usually have. By buying them in bulk, you get a pretty good deal on an item that'll last a few months. However, if that item is already spoiled, you're in trouble. This was the case in 2022, when Costco discovered that its 3-pound bags of Kirkland Signature Shelled Walnuts were spoiled. The store found that the walnuts in each bag had a rancid, unpleasant smell and tasted way past their prime.

This issue affected bags that had four different best-before dates, which made tracking the products down slightly trickier. The good news when it comes to this recall is that while the nuts probably didn't taste very nice, they likely weren't harmful. Rancid nuts tend not to do us any harm in the way that food spoiled by infectious bacteria might, as our stomachs are equipped to break down the oxidation byproducts that are created as they spoil. However, that's probably not a huge comfort for the folks who had driven all the way out to Costco, only to come home with spoiled walnuts.

Salmonella is a huge concern when it comes to food: Approximately 1.35 million people become infected by Salmonella bacteria each year, with well over 400 deaths on average, according to the CDC. As such, supermarkets take it very seriously when their products may potentially be contaminated with it, and Costco reacted quickly when products sold in its stores may have been linked to an ongoing outbreak.

The 2014 recall encompassed a massive amount of chicken products made by Foster Farms, which were produced over a six-day time span. Costco wasn't the only store affected, either, with products also going to Foodmaxx, Kroger, and Safeway stores across the country. Costco was wise to issue this recall for its products, as this outbreak turned out to be much bigger than most folks had probably anticipated — and by the time it had put out the recall notice, it had been rolling on for more than a year, with well over 600 people becoming sick.

When recall notices are put out, people's first thoughts are usually ones of panic. Is the item in my house? Have I already eaten it? Will it make me sick? Luckily, when it comes to one specific recall in 2021, people didn't have as much cause to worry. Costco put out a recall notice for Redland's Dark Chocolate Covered Pistachios back in 2021, and they didn't do so out of the product being contaminated or somehow dangerous — it simply wasn't up to the stores' standards.

The issue? The pistachios had been overcooked. "It has come to our attention that some of the pistachios in this product may have been over roasted," Redlands Food Corp. stated in a recall notice issued via Costco. "While not a food safety issue, this does not meet our quality expectations." The company promised that folks could get a full refund for their item if they weren't happy with it from the Costco that they bought it at. Over-roasted pistachios tend to have a burnt, slightly bitter flavor and a more brittle texture than other ones, so it's fair enough if people didn't love them. They're by no means risky, though.

Metal contamination is an unfortunate reality with processed food. It can make its way into food products due to degraded machinery in the factories they're produced in, or through human error. Metal contamination in drinks, though, is far less common — and yet, in 2023, that's exactly what happened. Costco had to put out a recall notice for its cans of Kirkland Signature Colombian Cold Brew Coffee because certain products may have had metal in them. There were a lot of products that were potentially contaminated, too; in total, the company had to seek out 2.7 million cans of the item.

Costco wasn't helped by the fact that its product had been shipped to 13 different states, making tracking each one down a small nightmare in itself. It's unclear exactly how the metal made its way into the cans, but as when it happens with food, it could have been a case of broken-down items on the production line causing contamination. Luckily, metal clanging around in a can of cold brew is much easier to find than pieces hidden in processed chicken patties or nuggets, so we'd hope that customers heard it before taking a big gulp.

Frozen strawberries are one of the best frozen fruits available at Costco, and aren't subject to the same spoilage that fresh ones can undergo. They can become spoiled in a different way, though, with yet another example of bacterial contamination coming courtesy of Costco in 2023. The supermarket had to recall certain lots of its Kirkland Signature Frozen Organic Whole Strawberries after an outbreak of hepatitis A. The strawberries had mainly been shipped around California, but what made things a bit trickier is that certain lots had made their way all the way to Hawaii.

Crucially, this outbreak hadn't directly been linked to the frozen strawberries, and testing hadn't found any hepatitis A on them. The berries were instead recalled out of pure caution. To be honest, they were right to do so, as frozen berries can be especially susceptible to hepatitis A contamination. Once the virus makes its way onto them, it can survive for several months, and if you're not then cooking these berries it can make it incredibly difficult to prevent them being harmful.

Some food recalls are conducted because the product in question has somehow become contaminated. Others are recalled — slightly more rarely — because they're just not up to standard. This was the case at the top of 2023, when Costco put out a recall for its Kirkland Signature Chocolate Crepes that had been sold between August and December 2022. The reason for the recall was that the crepes (which are actually cookies folded into a crepe shape) had been found to be discolored.

Costco was keen to stress that this wasn't a health or food safety issue, and so anybody who had eaten the crepes need not have worried. However, it's hardly a good look for the store, which should be trusted to deliver consistent products. It's also understandable that people would have been concerned about eating these crepes. Aside from the obvious issue of paying for and consuming a product that's clearly not up to scratch, the discoloration may have indicated that they weren't cooked enough, and therefore may potentially have been raw. 

While some food recalls pass without incident, others are less lucky — and far more dangerous. In 2015, Costco faced a significant challenge when its Rotisserie Chicken Salad (made with its leftover rotisserie chickens) was linked to a contained outbreak of E. coli. The salad, which was made by Taylor Farms Pacific, Inc., was supplied to stores across the country, with the outbreak occurring primarily in seven western States. The chicken salad was a deli item, and for those unlucky few that consumed it, it hit them pretty hard.

In total, 19 people became sick from the E. coli outbreak, and five of those people were hospitalized due to the infection. Even more seriously, two people experienced hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure that in some situations can be life-threatening. The silver lining was that nobody lost their lives, but it was still a massive problem for Costco, which promptly recalled all Rotisserie Chicken Salads in its stores across the country. As for the specific ingredient that caused the E. coli outbreak, that remains unclear. The tests conducted on the product couldn't determine exactly which item was to blame.

The rumors that Costco's Kirkland Signature vodka is actually Grey Goose have been around for years, and this is kinda a testament to the Costco version's excellent flavor. The store doesn't always get it right, though — and in 2023, things appeared to go pretty wrong with some of its lots of the spirit. Costco shared a product information notice with its customers asking individuals who had bought Kirkland vodka with the specific lot codes to return it to their local store. The somewhat vague reason they gave was that "the taste profile of units marked with certain lot codes may not have met the expected profile normally consistent with this product," according to a post on Reddit that shared the notice.

If you're a little confused by that, let us decode it for you: What Costco's saying is that the vodka sucked. Folks on the Reddit thread quickly pointed out that they had drunk vodka with the lot codes mentioned, and that it was indeed pretty bad. It's not entirely clear what went wrong, but one Redditor speculated that the liquor had previously been kept in vessels that had once stored rum, which contributed to their strange flavor.

Canned food can last for years, but only if the cans in question remain sealed and uncompromised. While you can generally expect cans sold at Costco to make it to your kitchen intact, that wasn't the case back in 2021. In April of that year, Faribault Foods Inc. had to put out a recall for two of its S&W canned products sold at Costco, due to the fact that the hermetic seals on the cans may have been compromised. These seals prevent any air from getting into the cans, which both stops the food from spoiling and prevents it from harmful bacteria like Botulism growing inside them.

At first, the recall was fairly contained. Faribault Foods Inc. recalled just five lots of its black beans, as well as one lot of chili beans. However, less than a month later the company had to go back to the drawing board. It appeared that it had found that even more of its cans could have been compromised, and extended its recall. This time, it was seeking out 15 different lots of black beans, with the company trying to track down those pesky chili beans too.

Displaying correct allergen information on products is one of the most important things supermarkets can do to prevent their customers from coming to harm. Unfortunately, in 2017 Costco stocked an item that failed to do so. A Fresh Baby Greens with Turkey and Mango Salad made by Mibo Fresh Food was sent to its stores without wheat listed as an ingredient or allergen. As a result, over 3,400 pounds of product had to be recalled, so that nobody inadvertently became sick from eating it.

Now, call us old-fashioned, but we don't necessarily expect wheat to be in our turkey salads — but it appears that it entered the food via a slightly surprising source. The turkey salad had honey glazed walnut pieces inside it, and these walnut pieces had wheat as an ingredient, potentially to help the honey glaze better adhere to each nut piece. The good news was that despite this wheat presence, nobody seems to have experienced an allergic reaction.