Why Costco Meat Gets Returned So Much By Customers

Costco offers a generous return policy — if a shopper isn't satisfied with their purchase for whatever reason, they can take advantage of the store's 100% satisfaction guarantee and return what they bought for a full refund. There are some items you can't return to Costco, including gift cards, but perishable products are not on that list. With such a robust return policy, you'd think the store would focus on providing products that aren't likely to get returned, but meat is a Costco food item customers return more often than you might think.

As expected, Costco isn't exactly rushing to the presses to get the word out about its meat return problem, so to get a picture of what's happening, it helps to hear from Costco shoppers themselves. Some have taken to the internet to complain of poor quality when it comes to Costco's meat. 

A Reddit post shared a disturbing image of some oddly stringy raw chicken with the caption, "Who else has purchased funky chicken from Costco lately? We picked up chicken last weekend and it doesn't look right at all." This muscular irregularity is an increasingly common sight among industrially raised chickens. Selective breeding and commercial practices, which can involve growth hormones, cause the poultry birds to grow very quickly, which can cause a stringy texture. However, the package clearly states there are no added hormones or steroids, so it's not clear what exactly is happening here. In another Reddit thread about Costco's beef quality, one comment reads, "The meat at Costco has really gone downhill since 2020. We are buying elsewhere now."

Is this problem specific to Costco? Yes and no. On that same Reddit thread discussing the low-quality ribeye at Costco, one comment mentioned they tried ribeye from Walmart instead and were surprised at how much better it was, saying, "I was practically deep frying the Walmart steaks because of all the fat that melted off them. Not getting steak at Costco any time soon." To be fair, you can purchase some great cuts of meat at Costco. But if your experience with the retailer's meat is consistently bad enough that it warrants a return trip to get your money back, that's likely going to be enough to persuade you to stop purchasing meat there.

For what it's worth, the problem seems to be less Costco-specific when it comes to chicken than for beef. That weird shredded texture the Reddit post pointed out is a defect, which industry jargon has taken to calling "spaghetti meat," and it's a direct result of chickens growing at an unnatural rate. A significant chunk of the current American poultry supply is affected by it, so it only stands to reason that Costco would be affected alongside other grocers. We are eating an unhinged amount of chicken globally these days, and the widespread use of growth hormones is certainly connected. The spaghetti meat problem is just one downstream effect.