Costco Connection - August 2006

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CHRIS MCARTHUR

BuyingSmart Consumer reporter Pat Volchok gives a behind-the-scenes look at Costco products and services. Send your questions to: buyingsmart@costco.com

BY PAT VOLCHOK

IF THE THOUGHT of spending hours cooking every day leaves a bitter taste, let me introduce you to the best meal deal in town, Costco’s Kirkland Signature Service Deli.

Founded on Costco’s golden rule of quality first and then price, this highly successful meals-to-go program offers home-style salads, sandwiches, side dishes, entrées and Costco’s famous rotisserie items. The department’s mantra is simple: Create great comfort food seasoned with fresh home-cooked taste, exceptional eye appeal and delicious aroma.

Costco’s Tom Fox of the Service Deli team explains, “Costco’s doing what a member would have to do to make a meal. We create our own recipes around the warehouse foods

members already love, prepare the dishes by hand in each warehouse’s Service Deli kitchen on a daily basis and package them up fresh, ready for members to take home.”

Fresh is an understatement. Standards are so strict that rotisserie chickens are pulled after just two hours out of the oven. All rotisserie and meals-to-go items also undergo constant scrutiny and temperature checks and are removed if necessary. Costco does not participate in the questionable practice of lowering the price of foods nearing expiration dates.

Here’s another plus: Warehouse products are used as much as possible. This practice ensures quality and reduces costs. Take the new, extra-large 3-ounce meatballs. They are made

with Kirkland Signature’s own fresh ground beef, made at Costco’s meat plant in Tracy, California.

Tom shares great news. Starting this fall, Service Deli menus will change seasonally to take advantage of new harvests and offer broader choices. Which is why winterish comfort foods, including meatballs with penne, mashed sweet potatoes and rotisserie chicken noodle soup will soon start to appear. As an added timesaver, all chicken, beef and fish dishes will be precooked and just need reheating.