5 Items At Costco We Want A Kirkland Signature Version Of

Kirkland Signature's reputation for making better products than the brand-name original and selling them at lower prices has Costco loyalists wishing more items had a private label counterpart. Products ranging from paper plates to unsalted grass-fed butter, flavored coffee, spicy chicken strips, and even ketchup could all use a Kirkland Signature dupe. Reddit comments on the subject show that customers want the brand to add a lot more to its inventory. "I'd buy a Kirkland house. Think of the quality and value!" says one.

There are various reasons why Costco's in-house brand, which generates about $90 billion in annual sales, shies away from producing certain products. Sometimes it's because the company is unable to match the technology used by the national brand. Or, Costco is unable to come up with an in-house version that stands out enough from its main competitor. Essentially, if Costco can't meet or exceed the quality of the leading mainstream brand, it doesn't make a Kirkland Signature version of the product. Still, certain dupes seem well within reach for Costco's in-house label despite its stringent product philosophy. For now, these sought-after Kirkland Signature items remain missing from warehouse shelves.

Considering the in-house label's focus on common household items, it's surprising Kirkland Signature doesn't sell paper plates. We could all do with some good-quality paper plates for cheap, but Costco only sells Kirkland Signature plastic plates that can be hand-washed and reused. The 50-pack retails for $15.49, but a $3 off sale price is often in effect. With consideration to the sale price, this works out to approximately 25 cents per plate. That's almost double the 13-cent per-piece cost of the 186-pack of Dixie Ultra paper plates Costco sells. Plus, Kirkland Signature's plastic pack contains a 50/50 mix of large and small plates, so unless you want your guests eating on different-sized plates, you'll only be able to serve 25 people with this pack of 50.

While plastic plates may be better suited to some occasions, Kirkland Signature's have some blatant downsides. Sure, they can be reused, but they snap and break easily, which means you'll need to store them very carefully if you want to use them again. Also, unlike the paper plates sold at Costco, these aren't microwavable. Sometimes, we just need a huge stack of decent-quality paper plates to feed a large gathering, and it would be nice to get a Kirkland Signature product to make that choice easier.

The coffee selection at Costco is predictably expansive , with large and small brands vying for shelf space. Within the coffee aisle, you'll find around a dozen Kirkland Signature coffee products, ranging from staples like Colombian and French roast beans to cold brew and even a couple of light roast options. However, flavored coffees are conspicuously missing from Kirkland Signature's java lineup. Fellow warehouse retailer Sam's Club offers a flavored K-Cup variety pack under its private label Member's Mark, but Costco relies on external brands, such as Jose's, to supply flavored coffees. "I wish Kirkland made a hazelnut-flavored coffee," u/CheersToHappiness wrote on Reddit.

The lack of Kirkland Signature flavored coffees could stem from Costco's strategy of stocking fewer unique products to focus on items that generate high sales volumes. When Mashed ranked Kirkland Signature coffee blends from worst to best, medium and dark roasts dominated. Given the frequency with which Costco rotates its products, it would be nice to see a few Kirkland Signature seasonal coffee flavors thrown into the mix — especially considering how some of the name brands behind Kirkland products, like Starbucks, make flavored coffee products.

Costco sells so much Kirkland Signature chicken that its massive processing plant in Nebraska, which processes 2 million birds a week, only meets a fraction of the retail giant's requirements. Despite the vast catalogue of poultry products, the in-house label lacks a few items we'd like to see — like spicy frozen chicken. Costco is known to carry lightly breaded, spicy chicken strips by the brand Just Bare, but there is no Kirkland Signature counterpart. When we compared Kirkland Signature chicken chunks to Just Bare chicken chunks in a taste test, Costco's brand was the spicer of the two original flavors, but not in a way that compares to Just Bare's zesty strips. "Wake me up when the Kirkland Signature spicy chicken strips drop," reads one comment on an r/Costco thread discussing Just Bare's version.

Both brands have earned fans, yet it's hard to beat Kirkland Signature on pricing. An in-house Costco version of breaded chicken strips, spicy or otherwise, would be a welcome addition for customers with an eye for value. One shopper tired of Just Bare's rising costs posted on r/Costco, "I quit buying this brand when they jacked their prices through the roof. Never buying again. The Kirkland nuggets are just as good and cheaper."

Customers often compare Kirkland Signature's grass-fed butter to Kerrygold — a testament to just how good Costco's private label offering is. The Irish staple is recognized as one of the best in the U.S., making Kerrygold the go-to for legions of consumers despite its relatively high price. Once Costco started selling it, members were able to procure Kerrygold for less than what it cost at most supermarkets. When the Kirkland Signature dupe launched in 2021, the golden, grass-fed goodness got even more affordable. Unfortunately, this is only good news for salted butter buyers. There is no Costco private label offering for the unsalted grass-fed variety.

While it's possible to use salted butter in some dishes that call for unsalted by tweaking the recipe accordingly, there are times when unsalted is the only way. This is especially true when you want the distinctive earthy notes of grass-fed butter without the extra sodium. Instances that call for large quantities of butter (like baking) often rely on the unsalted kind, which makes the need for a pocket-friendly grass-fed butter all the more pertinent. The maker of Costco's Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed Butter, Westland Milk Products, produces unsalted butter, but an in-house Costco version eludes us.

Costco has had a bumpy relationship with ketchup, partly because few products have as clear a market leader as the tomato condiment. So far, Kirkland Signature hasn't formulated a viable Heinz ketchup dupe. Over the years, Costco has made Heinz ketchup appear and disappear from its shelves, sometimes replacing it with other brands. While the retailer may have done this to offer its members a better-valued product, it still left Heinz buyers indignant. "No Heinz ... just Red Gold. This is some kind of joke, right?" was the title caption of one annoyed Redditor's r/Costco thread. Perhaps a Kirkland Signature ketchup could give Costco members some reassurance that at least one kind of ketchup will remain consistently available at their local warehouse. Of course, it would still need to match up to Heinz and be cheaper.

The big box retailer's lack of a store-brand ketchup appears to benefit competing chains. Customers have listed the condiment as one of the items you'd be better off buying at Aldi than Costco. In fact, some even prefer Aldi ketchup to Heinz. Similarly, Trader Joe's private-label ketchup also has fans. "I dropped Heinz when they switched to sweetening with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Trader Joe's organic ketchup is my new choice. HFCS aside, I still prefer the TJ's to Heinz," confirms one Reddit user. Surely Kirkland Signature could drum up a worthy iteration of the world's most popular tomato condiment.