Costco Wholesale: In-Warehouse Member-Only Savings: See Thread Expired

I have tried the Kiolbassa, and it is fine. If you compare it to the supermarket brands, e.g. Hillshire, it is much better.

So, is the Costco Kiolbassa real kielbasa? I was grew up in a Polish neighborhood, and the kielbasa was bought from Polish butchers. Each butcher had their own recipe, and they were all different. You choose the one you liked best.

The Costco Kiolbassa brand is made from beef, while the kielbasa from my old neighborhood was made from pork. I don't live near my old neighborhood, so I buy the Costco brands.

They're the same company. Pacific Gold is Oberto's Costco-only brand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberto_Snacks_Inc.


I used to buy the Kirkland canned chicken breast to mix in with my dog's food. I picked up a 6-pack on sale for around $6.50 just before the pandemic. Really regretted not getting more. The price peaked at just below $20. And now has come back down to about $14-$15.

They are bending over backwards to keep the hot rotisserie chicken at $4.99. Probably selling it at a loss. It works out to less than $2/lb. Only a part of it is breast meat, but I'd estimate you get about 1 lbs of breast meat from it. Versus about $5/lb for their frozen chicken breasts. So if you eat a lot of chicken, the rotisserie chicken may be the better deal. For the same price you're essentially getting the rest of the chicken for free.


Wholesale price of eggs (i.e. what the store pays) is currently at around $2/doz, closer to $3/doz for large and jumbo.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreport...ellegg.pdf

When I worked at a hotel/restaurant 15 years ago, we bought the eggs directly from a local egg farm (they were only about 5 miles away). The price was usually around $1.50 per gross (144 eggs), or a bit over 12 cents/dozen. We'd get a couple carts full of racks of eggs each week, and it'd be about $100-$150. Packaging, distribution, and handling costs make up the bulk of the retail price.

Crabbing is a fuel-intensive operation. The crab boats burn a lot of fuel searching for and catching the crab. Unlike factory ships which can process, package, and freeze the fish aboard the ship so aren't really time-constrained, crab boats have to head back to port at high speed (burning lots more fuel) to deliver the crab alive to a processor (the meat begins decomposing very quickly if it dies). I think we all know what's happened to fuel prices.


Costco will refund the price difference within 30 days of the original purchase date. If you don't have a receipt, they can look up your membership card's purchase history and find it there for a return. I imagine they can do it for a price adjustment too, though I've never tried. I've noticed though that they now make your purchase history available if you login to their website (so you no loner need to keep the paper receipts around - you can simply print out a new copy at home if you need it).

If you're beyond 30 days, for packaged goods like the beef jerky or dual air fryer you can usually exploit their return policy. Simply bring your old receipt, buy the item on sale, take it straight to their return counter, and return it using the old receipt. Presto - you've converted your previous full-price purchase to a sale price purchase. I try to keep it within reason and usually only do this if I'd been meaning to get a price adjustment, but kept forgetting to bring the old receipt until I was past the 30 day window. Malicious exploitation pushes the cost into higher regular prices and membership fees, so doesn't really save you money.


Co-ops pass along their costs too. The only difference between a co-op and corporation is that there's no profit. Which is good in that the prices are lower. But bad in that there's no incentive for the co-op to stock items which are in higher demand. Whoever is in charge of running the co-op just stocks whatever they feel they should. If it takes more work to obtain the higher-demand item, they may not bother since there's no there's no benefit to them them for the extra work.

It's only charities which don't pass along costs. They pay for the costs via donations or an endowment fund. Someone always has to pay the piper. Even the student load "forgiveness" programs aren't really forgiveness. They're simply shifting the cost of repaying the loans away from the people who took out the loans, onto all taxpayers. Or (in cases where the loans were made with criminal malfeasance) back onto the entity which made the loans or received the loan money as payment.

You can get a refund of your membership (or at least prorated if not a full refund) fyi