When is the last time you enjoyed a good, quality trip to the grocery store?
If your answer was closer to "last weekend" than "never," chances are you have a Costco (COST) membership.
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Costco members pay $60 or $120 per year for the sheer opportunity to even enter those warehouse doors and delight in the splendors and savings that await them. And while $5 a month may just seem like a steep grocery cover charge, once you're inside, you start to understand why you have to pay for the privilege. There are few other stores that sell kayaks, grills, flat-screen TVs, diamonds, toilet paper, and organic strawberries under one roof.
Of course, the cost savings benefit is also a big draw. Costco offers a wide range of samples throughout the store, so customers can try a product before they buy it. And its in-house Kirkland brand products offer quality at typically bargain prices.
It doesn't hurt that a lot of the stuff Costco sells also comes in bulk sizes, which makes for fewer grocery trips over time for busy families. Buying in bulk also typically helps to bring costs down, since stores can't get away with up charging for individually packed tissue boxes or water bottles, for example.
Costco often changes its offerings
There are usually a couple of constants that most customers have come to rely on at Costco. For one, the hot dog has been – and will be, at least for the near future – $1.50.
And Costco leadership feels very strongly about maintaining the price of the meal special.
"If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out," Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal warned its CEO circa 2009. Now, after over 10 years, several recessions, a pandemic, and record-high food prices, that dog is still under $2.
But Costco has been known to change things up from time to time, too. It beckons shoppers in by stocking new and novel items. It recently began stocking Kimbap, a Korean-style frozen sushi, which has proven to be highly popular among more adventurous shoppers.
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It also sells trendy home furnishings. The discount warehouse started selling out of a viral gold mirror, which cost just $149.99 and looks awfully similar to one that sells at upscale fashion boutique Anthropologie – but retails for closer to $1,200.
Costco coffee gets a change
Most of these changes are often welcomed – and quickly noticed by devotees who often post about their findings on social media.
One change, however, may upset some consumers, which is perhaps why it's been been done rather quietly over the past few months.
Some eagle-eyed customers noticed that Costco has changed the packaging on its popular Kirkland Brand House Blend coffee, which typically comes in a large 2.5 pound bag. Previously, each bag proudly donned a Starbucks (SBUX) partnership logo. The bags read "custom roasted by Starbucks coffee company," indicating it was a specialty blend made as a part of an agreement between the two companies.
Now, however, that labeling is noticeably gone. Newer bags sold at Costco simply say the blend is "balanced and smooth," with a medium to dark flavor profile.
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Though both companies have remained quiet about any changes, most food bloggers speculate a contract has simply expired between Costco and Starbucks and the warehouse is now sourcing its coffee blend from elsewhere.
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"It's likely, given the change, that Starbucks' contract expired and the two brands have parted ways — on this product, at least — but that is yet to be uncovered," Tasting Table writes.
Plenty of anecdotal evidence on Reddit backs up that claim.
"In Chicago I was just told Starbucks did not re up their deal with Costco. No longer doing the roasting," one user wrote on the Costco subreddit.
"Super bummed as the old beans were cheap, tasted good, and a really solid dry/medium roast," another wrote.
"I finally tried my new bag. It’s really sad. Need to find a new option I will not get again," one disappointed user chimed in.
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