Most shoppers walk into Costco assuming everything under that giant warehouse roof is a good deal. Bulk pricing, Kirkland branding, those irresistible sample stations — it all creates a kind of halo effect where every product feels like a steal. But the people who work there every single day? They know better. Through Reddit threads, anonymous interviews, and the occasional Quora confession, Costco employees have been quietly flagging the products they refuse to buy with their own paychecks. Some of the answers might genuinely surprise you.
The Fresh Fruit Problem Nobody Talks About
Costco’s produce section looks incredible. Strawberries the size of small fists, stacked high in those clear plastic clamshells. One Reddit user even posted a photo comparing three giant strawberries to the height of a water bottle. But according to Costco employees, those berries are quietly one of the most problematic products in the store. Fresh produce doesn’t get returned often — people just toss it — but workers say strawberries would lead the pack if people bothered bringing them back.
The issue is partly about volume and partly about shelf life. You’re saving maybe a dollar or two compared to your regular grocery store, but you’re buying way more than most households can eat before they go soft. Fresh strawberries last about two days on the counter. That’s it. So you’re either cramming them into an already-packed fridge or racing to eat four pounds of berries before Thursday.
Bananas get flagged even more aggressively. One employee put it bluntly on Reddit: “At least half the time, they don’t ripen.” Shoppers have complained about bunches staying green for weeks, stubbornly refusing to turn yellow no matter what trick you try. The paper bag method? Didn’t work. Tossing in an apple to speed up the ethylene gas exposure? Nope. A lot of people ended up just throwing them away. If you’re going to buy bananas at Costco, at least look for intact necks — that’s the one feature that indicates they were handled properly and have a shot at ripening normally.
Baked Goods Are Great Until You Get Them Home
Nobody’s questioning the taste of Costco’s bakery section. Those croissants are legitimately good. The muffins are absurdly large. But the employees who handle these products every day aren’t buying them — and the reason has nothing to do with flavor. It’s the packaging.
An Iowa-based employee told Business Insider that the packaging was simply too big for their household’s needs. A Pennsylvania colleague echoed the same thing: the baked goods take up more storage space than they’re worth. And this makes sense when you think about it practically. A 12-count pack of croissants is great if you’re feeding a crowd. But if you live alone, or even as a couple, you’re staring down a mountain of pastry that’s going stale by Wednesday. Some people freeze their extras, which works for certain items — cake wrapped in plastic and foil does fine — but cookies with icing? Those don’t survive the freezer. Neither do a lot of delicate pastries. So you end up wasting food or forcing yourself to eat croissants for breakfast, lunch, and a sad little dinner, which honestly sounds fun for about one day.
Your Local Grocery Store Probably Beats Costco on Soda
This one catches people off guard. Costco’s bulk soda packs seem like an obvious bargain — you’re buying 36 cans at once, the per-unit cost looks low, and you feel like you’re winning at adulting. But an anonymous employee actually recommended skipping the soda aisle entirely and heading to your regular supermarket instead.
Here’s why. Grocery stores use soda as a loss leader. They price it absurdly low — sometimes below cost — because it gets people through the door. Once you’re inside, you’ll probably buy other stuff at normal margins. Candy and soda sitting near the checkout? That’s strategically placed to trigger impulse purchases. But the upside for you, the shopper, is that those promotional prices on Coke or Pepsi 12-packs are frequently cheaper than Costco’s bulk rate. You just have to watch the weekly flyers and grab them when the sale hits. If you have even a little bit of willpower to resist buying extra stuff while you’re there, your local store wins this one.
Bulk Meat Sounds Smart but Creates Real Problems
Those massive packs of steaks and chicken breasts in the meat section are hard to walk past. The price per pound is legitimately good, and the quality of Costco’s cuts — particularly their flank steak — gets regular praise online. So what’s the issue?
A California-based Costco worker admitted to Business Insider that they skip the large meat packs because they simply exceed what their household can use. And there’s a logistical headache most people don’t think about until they’re standing in their kitchen with ten pounds of ground beef and a freezer that’s already half full. Meat needs to be frozen basically immediately after you get home. If your house is more than 30 minutes from the store, you should ideally be transporting it in an insulated cooler. Then you’ve got to divide it into meal-sized portions, wrap each one properly, and somehow Tetris it all into your freezer. That’s not a quick errand — that’s a whole project. For a family of four with a chest freezer in the garage, sure, it makes sense. For most people, though, you’re paying for convenience that actually creates more work.
The Kirkland Products That Even Fans Admit Are Bad
Kirkland Signature is usually synonymous with solid quality at a lower price. The brand accounts for nearly a third of all Costco sales — over $86 billion in 2024. But not every Kirkland product lives up to the name. Some are genuinely bad, and employees and loyal shoppers alike aren’t shy about saying so.
Take the Kirkland toilet paper. On the Costco subreddit, it might be the single most controversial product the store sells. People describe it shredding too easily, not tearing where it should, and somehow requiring more sheets per use despite not being terribly thin. Multiple users have reported it clogging toilets and septic tanks. A home organization expert and chef named Jessica Randhawa flat out recommends grabbing the Charmin instead: “Much softer, thicker, and doesn’t fall apart as easily.”
The Kirkland paper towels get similar criticism. They technically work, but they don’t absorb as well as Bounty, which sits on the pallet right next to them. If you’re constantly cleaning up kitchen messes, the efficiency gap adds up. And the Kirkland coffee beans? Multiple reviewers have noted a shift toward bitter, acidic flavor in recent batches. The Colombian Supremo used to be full-bodied. Now it tastes flat. The French Roast has been called “the blandest, most underwhelming coffee” by more than one reviewer. Chef Donovan DeLoach also points out that the ground coffee goes rancid quickly once opened, and unless your whole household drinks multiple cups a day, you probably won’t finish the container in time.
That Chicken Bake Isn’t Worth the Calories
The Costco food court is legendary. The $1.50 hot dog combo hasn’t changed price since 1985, which is genuinely wild. But not everything at the counter deserves the same loyalty. Christina Polovina, a California-based Costco manager with over a decade of experience, was asked point-blank about the worst food court item. Her answer: the Kirkland Signature Chicken Bake.
It clocks in under $4, and the serving size could technically feed two people. Sounds great until you look at the nutrition. Over 1,000 calories per chicken bake. Crispy dough, cheese, chicken, bacon, and Caesar dressing with a Parmesan coating — it’s essentially a calorie bomb disguised as a convenient lunch. Polovina described it on Quora as something that’s fine “as a treat once in a while,” but she cautions against making it a regular habit. Given that some people hit the food court every single Costco trip (which, honestly, guilty), that’s worth keeping in mind. The $1.50 hot dog isn’t exactly health food either, but at least it’s not quietly delivering half your daily calorie intake in one foil-wrapped tube.
Oversized Condiments and the Fridge Tetris Dilemma
A Minnesota-based Costco employee told Business Insider that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing — specifically, too much mayonnaise. The gallon-sized jars of Hellmann’s or Kirkland mayo are a recurring punchline among warehouse workers, because the math just doesn’t work for most households. Even if you’re a devoted mayo person, working through that much before it goes bad is a genuine challenge.
Unopened, mayo can sit in the pantry until its expiration date without any problems. But once you crack that seal, it needs to be refrigerated and used within two to three months. That’s a tight window for a container roughly the size of a toddler. And once it’s in the fridge, it dominates an entire shelf. One Reddit thread about Costco’s oversized packaging spiraled into people sharing photos of buckets of yogurt, drums of olive oil, and jars of pickles that could double as small aquariums. The savings look great on a per-ounce basis, but if you throw away a third of it because it expired, you didn’t actually save anything.
The same logic applies to the Kirkland diapers, by the way — though for different reasons. In early 2025, Costco switched diaper suppliers from Kimberly-Clark to First Quality, and parents immediately noticed the difference. The new version was thinner, less absorbent, and seemed to leak constantly. “The amount of blowback we’ve gotten in the store over these diapers is crazy,” said one Costco supervisor. His own household switched to Huggies. When the employees are bailing on a product, that tells you something.
The through-line in all of these recommendations is pretty consistent: Costco employees aren’t saying the store is bad. They love working there, they shop there, and plenty of products are genuinely excellent deals. What they’re flagging are the specific items where the bulk model breaks down — where the quantity exceeds what a normal household can use, the quality doesn’t match the packaging, or a competitor simply does it better for a similar price. The smartest Costco shoppers aren’t the ones who buy everything there. They’re the ones who know which aisles to skip. And here’s a thought to take with you on your next trip: if the people stocking those shelves forty hours a week are walking right past certain products on their own shopping runs, maybe the “deal” isn’t quite what it seems.
