Costco is the place to go if you want to shop in bulk but also want to go out with a full meal for your family.
Most turn to the $4.99 Costco Rotisserie Chicken because it’s tasty and inexpensive. Besides, it’s already cooked.
Side note: did you know that Costco rings when the chicken is about to be brought out?
But lately, customers are saying that Costco’s fried chicken tastes like soap or has a “chemical taste” and never tasted like this before.
I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t eaten a Costco chicken in years. I’ve read that they contain a ton of sodium so I tend to stay away.
And now I have yet another reason to stay away from them.
Reddit user u/MillennialModernMan posted a question on the r/Costco subreddit.
In the post entitled “What’s up with the fried chicken lately?says the Redditor, the product tastes different than usual, wondering if anyone has any answers.
What’s up with the fried chicken lately?
from u/Millennial Modern Man In Costco
And the answers were a bit chilling. Many replied that they noticed the same thing.
Some described it as tasting “soapy,” while others said it tasted more like “chemicals.”
“Thank you for posting this. Thought I was going to lose it/had Covid again as I recently tried a fried chicken and it tasted…chemical and soapy? So strange”, answered a Redditor.
“Yes, I noticed a distinct chlorine-like taste. I stopped eating it about a year(?) ago because of the weird chemical taste. I use the store in Albany, OR.” wrote another Redditor.
“The same thing happened to me 100%,” says another Redditor agreed. “The chicken has a chemical taste. I’m guessing someone didn’t clean well enough after using the cleaning chemicals or something.”
Well, there’s no way to know for sure what’s causing the flavor, but one person commented that she works at Costco’s Deli and attempted to provide a rationale:
“Deli worker here. We get two different types of chickens.” commented another Redditor. “One of them is our house brand from our processing facility in Nebraska. The others are foster farms. The foster farm chickens are of lower quality and cook differently than ours. Which is (due to) the fact that they are water-cooled while ours are air-cooled. Our chickens are raised in Nebraska while foster parents are from California. If your chicken is gross, it’s most likely because it’s a foster farm chicken.”
I mean, that might explain it, but the tricky part is you’ll never know if you’re getting a good chicken or a bad one.
With that said, I think I’ll skip the pre-cooked chicken and opt to make my own!
Have you noticed that Costco chicken tastes weird lately?