Costco’s rotisserie chickens are among the store’s most beloved offerings — and have remained at $4.99 for years despite inflation
But while the price hasn’t changed, the packaging has. And customers – who buy 137 million annually – are not happy.
Costco has started selling ready-to-eat chicken in soft plastic bags at its U.S. locations instead of the traditional hard-shell plastic containers. The rollout began in U.S. stores in March.
Shoppers are complaining about the new packaging’s leak-prone design, which is causing a mess in carts, cars and refrigerators as meat juices can leak out.
On Reddit, customer Bozerks wrote: ‘Chicken juice flowed all over the trunk of our car. These new bags are leaking!!”
Costco customers are complaining that the new soft plastic bags for rotisserie chickens are leaking grease
Costco’s cooked chickens previously came in hard plastic casings. These are still in many US stores as the new bags are rolled out
Others commenting on the thread largely agreed.
Among the 600 comments, another shopper said: ‘The bags were slippery from the juice on display so my hands were covered in grease.
‘Putting them on the tape in front of the cash register also resulted in chicken fat.
“The staff looked ‘Ew, gross’ at it when they picked it up and said it was the second day we had them and everyone seemed to hate them – including the employees who kept having to clean the tires.”
Another user, a deli worker, said the new bags make packing the chicken more time-consuming and messy.
The redesign uses 75 percent less plastic and reduces the use of 17 million pounds of resin per year, according to Costco.
Shoppers have suggested solving the problem by double-bagging the chicken with extra plastic bags from the meat department — which obviously undermines the environmentally friendly intentions of Costco’s packaging switch.
The new packaging is still being rolled out – and isn’t in every US store yet.
Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chickens are popular, but customers don’t like the new soft plastic bags they come in
Experts say bosses will likely fix the design flaw, or even pause the rollout until they can.
The bags have been used at Costco locations in Canada for about a year without the same leakage issues.
A Canadian customer commented on Reddit: ‘I have literally never seen a board with such stains. So it’s likely that whatever the problem is can be solved.”