Whenever we forget how massively inter-connected our food supply is, a huge national recall of prepared foods comes along and reminds us. This time, the reminder comes from Minnesota-based manufacturer Parkers Farm Acquisition, LLC, which packages salsa, cold pack cheeses, peanut butter, and pepper spreads under its own name and also store brands. Some of their products were contaminated with the very nasty foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes.
costco
Parker Farms And Store Brand Cheese Snacks, Salsa, And Peanut Butter Recalled For Possible Listeria
By 3.25.14
Fish Is So Fresh At Costco, One Package Of Cod Still Had A Live Worm Wriggling Around In It
By 3.21.14
Because most of us don’t buy our fish straight off the dock, finding a worm with your fresh fish is bound to be a bit of a surprising event. And while a Costco customer’s video of a fresh package of cod doesn’t show the kind of wriggling worm you’d put on a hook, seeing a parasitic nematode snuggled in there is still enough to warrant a “careful if you’re eating lunch while reading this” warning. [More]
Costco Sliced Fruit Packs Recalled For Possible Not-Yummy Salmonella Flavoring
By 3.14.14
The FDA and the Oregon-based company that produces Kirkland Signature Real Sliced Fruit packages for Costco have issued a recall of nearly 60,000 cases of the product because the last thing you want with your freeze-dried fruit is Salmonella poisoning. [More]
Do Younger Shoppers Love Costco As Much As Their Parents?
By 3.12.14
A large number of Consumerist readers are in the “Millennial” generation, and really love Costco. That’s just anecdotal information based on the contents of our inbox, though: some investment analysts are starting to wonder whether today’s young adults will buy their own memberships and get their frozen meat by the crate, their toilet paper by the truckload, and their honey a gallon at a time, just like their forebears. [More]
How To Not Suck… At Buying In Bulk
By 3.5.14
Like most folks, we here at Consumerist love a good deal. The problem is that sometimes stuff that appears to be a big money-saver is actually a big money-waster. [More]
Consumers Turning To One-Stop-Shop Stores Rather Than Traditional Grocery Stores
By 2.19.14
When I was growing up, my mom would do our family’s grocery shopping at several different stores. She’d purchase fresh produce at one, meat at another and non-perishable items like cleaning supplies at another. Today, she only goes to one store. She’s part of a growing trend of consumers frequenting big box stores rather than traditional grocers to mark off items on their grocery list. [More]
Thieves With Hammers Pull Smash-And Grab On Costco Jewelry Cases During Store Hours
By 2.18.14
Sometimes the crimes that sound like they could never be pulled off — especially in broad daylight with witnesses all over the place — end up being ridiculously successful. A couple of allegedly no good, very bad consumers took the most obvious and literal route for a smash-and-grab at not one, but two Georgia Costco,s using hammers to smack open the jewelry case. And then they of course, grabbed stuff, because that’s how a S&G works. [More]
Simplified Shopping: How Costco Tricks You Into Buying More
By 1.27.14
The vast warehouse landscape that is Costco knows how suck you in and how to maximize the amount of goods you purchase on each visit. It’s what makes Costco so successful — a tried and true design focused on simplicity. [More]
Costco Settles Gender-Discrimination Lawsuit for $8 Million
By 12.20.13
Giant wholesale retailer Costco has tentatively settled a gender-discrimination class-action lawsuit for $8 million, the Seattle Times reports. The settlement will become finalized if the court approves it at a hearing in February. [More]
The Good, Bad & Ugly Of Stores’ Holiday Return Policies
By 12.18.13
As much as we’d all love to believe that everything we give to our loved ones — and everything we receive from them — this holiday season will be exactly what we want and need, and that it will fit our bodies and/or be compatible with everything we already own. But odds are that a lot of us will be returning at least one thing to a store in the days and weeks after Christmas, so it helps to know retailers’ return policies. [More]
30 Tissues Disappear From Redesigned Kleenex Box At Costco
By 12.18.13
As we all know, Costco is the place to get the hottest deals on huge quantities of consumer goods. For example, you can buy a box of Kleenex tissues that contains 260 pieces. Which isn’t a very big quantity, come to think of it…but now it’s shrinking. [More]
Amazon Going After Costco, Sam’s Club With ‘Pantry’ Bulk-Buying Service
By 12.13.13
For years, Amazon has been selling certain household goods, like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and cereal, that are the bread-and-butter for warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club, but the online retailer has had trouble competing because of the shipping costs. That may change next year with the reported launch of something called Pantry. [More]
Find Some AA Batteries That Are Not Terrible
By 12.2.13
Haven’t you always wanted to buy a bunch of different brands of batteries, test them side by side in the same appliance, and see which one lasts the longest? No? Well, let’s pretend that you have. Everyone uses batteries at some point, and our fully-charged colleagues over at Consumer Reports tested some for all of our benefit. [More]
Costco’s Clever Plan To Sell Both Gas & Liquor In D.C. Results In Death Threats
By 12.2.13
In Washington, D.C., you can’t sell alcoholic beverages and gasoline at the same business. But when Costco came to town, it didn’t throw up its hands and do away with one or the other parts of its business. Instead, it got clever and figured out a way to sell both booze and discount gas, a move that hasn’t gone over well with other gas stations in the city. [More]
Costco Apologizes For Bibles Labeled As “Fiction” At California Store
By 11.20.13
Costco’s had some explaining to do after the pastor of a non-denominational church in California happened upon a particular display of Bibles at his local Costco store. He says he was shopping for a gift for his wife when he found a bunch of Bibles with price tags reading “fiction.” [More]
Costco, BJ’s Would Rather Have Their Employees Spend Thanksgiving At Home
By 11.14.13
This year, everyone from Kmart to Macy’s to Staples will be celebrating the time-honored tradition of ruining Thanksgiving by throwing open their doors early to shoppers eager to flee the company of their families in favor of door-buster deals on junk the stores are desperate to get rid of. But some retailers simply refuse to get into the spirit of Black Thursday and won’t open until — get this — the day after Thanksgiving. [More]
Costco Sends Us Bale Of Cardboard, Includes Free Furniture Pieces
By 10.31.13
Amy was familiar with the work of the Stupid Shipping Gang, but didn’t expect to see them in her own office. No, not in the shipping department: at Costco, the vendor that sent them some soundproof panels for the office. [More]
Woman Says Costco Didn’t Apologize For Locking Her Inside Store
By 10.7.13
While being inside a Costco after hours might seem like an awesome setting for a movie montage — binge eating in the candy/cookie/nut section, trying on every piece of clothing on the tables, offering free samples to yourself, chugging mayonnaise — a California woman was not so thrilled to find herself locked inside her local warehouse store. [More]
