I shop at Costco despite the prices, because I like their ethos of treating employees well and business model that makes me feel like they wouldn’t cut unnecessary corners on product quality.
Since this is an item I get regularly - it’s $9 for a 4-pack of Kerrygold butter at the Mountain View Costco ($2.25/
8oz bar). Same 8oz butter is almost double at Safeway or Whole Foods. The local Walmart is $2.83 per bar.
I have rarely found Costco items more expensive than other local stores, at least for my regular items.
I discount Trader Joe’s since they don’t carry branded items other than wine and beer.
I discount Trader Joe’s since they don’t carry branded items other than wine and beer.
They carry a variety of branded items including Kerrygold, Tilamook, Rouge et Noir (Bay Area cheese maker), those kringles, Spindrift, Columbus (lunchmeat), those organic herbs, and Tom's of Maine (hygiene). There's probably a few more.
Second on TJs butter. For quality to value ratio of most foods, TJs blows Costso out of the water imo, and you don't have to buy cheese in 3 lb blocks.
> Organic chicken stock is cheaper at Whole Foods.
If you buy Better than Bouillon at Costco, you can get a pound of the stuff for about $6, which is double the quantity that you find at most other grocery stores.
I stopped buying liquid stock after I found that stuff, because it's so much cheaper.
That stuff is way too salty though with a pretty thin flavor profile. You can at least find liquid stocks with no sodium so you can add a lot of flavor and then salt to taste. Even their reduced sodium version is too salty. Liquid no sodium stocks still aren’t awesome either but I think it’s better overall than the Better than Boulion options.
I've been getting a lot of stuff at Home Depot and Lowe's recently, and finding that they each have different products for everything, and which one is obviously better/cheaper varies on an extremely granular level - not just a manufacturer or product type, but an individual product. It's gotten really frustrating that every time I want three or four things I have to go to both or I will regret my choices.
I believe this is a general phenomenon and I read years ago about someone studying it in grocery stores. I'm not sure to what extent it is emergent vs. rationally thought out, but direct competitors tend to evolve to give you just enough good options to get you in the store, and as many bad deals as you are likely to go with just because you are in the store. Being uniformly better is not necessary to compete and therefore suboptimal.
It depends on the Costcos, Walmarts, and Whole Foods in your area.
In LA, Costco isn't always the cheapest on a per-unit basis, but they're always the cheapest on a per weight/per ounce basis.
For example, Kerrygold butter is $5 at the Ralphs, and the same size container is $8 at the nearest Whole Foods. It's $16 at Costco...but for 4x the amount of butter, making it cheaper than both Ralphs and Whole Foods if you can actually use all that butter. (There are no nearby Walmarts, and neither of the local Targets or Food4Less' sell Kerrygold.)
So given a choice of shopping at Costco who pays the highest wages and benefits vs. Walmart who has the lowest wages and benefits, I will pay that small extra for the butter.
Kerrygold butter is cheaper at Walmart.
Organic chicken stock is cheaper at Whole Foods.
Organic diced tomatoes at Costco however are very well priced.