Where Does Costco Get Its Kirkland Signature Honey?

Costco's Kirkland Signature brand has a consistent reputation for being affordable and generally high quality. It's a dependable go-to for grocery staples and supplies to stock your home — but how about the brand's honey? The Kirkland Signature honey comes in a variety of formats, and if you've spotted the large 5-pound plastic container, you may have wondered where and how the warehouse retailer is sourcing so much of the sweetener. Where the Kirkland Signature honey actually comes from is a bit more complex, as the warehouse retailer Costco doesn't rely on just one supplier or even one country to keep its shelves stocked.

So there isn't one way to answer the question because Costco typically uses multiple sources in the United States and internationally, from countries like Brazil and Argentina. Where you buy the Kirkland Costco honey and which format you buy will determine where it comes from. On the Australia Costco website, its Kirkland honey is sourced from Australia. Currently, on the 5-pound Kirkland honey product page on the United States Costco website, the honey is listed as being sourced from Argentina. The smaller, 1-pound bear bottles of the Kirkland honey instead come from Brazil.

A secret to the Kirkland brand is that it often works with well-known brands and producers for its label, Costco has revealed more exact details about its sources over the years. In 2019, a buyer for the company explained that it worked with Rice's Honey in Colorado, a supplier that only sources from beekeepers based in the United States. In Canadian Costcos, the Kirkland brand comes from Bee Maid, a co-op made up of over 300 beekeepers based in the country.

Before 2022, depending on where you lived in the United States, you could find honey local to your region. For example, in an r/Costco subreddit from four years ago, the original poster published a photo of the Kirkland brand honey that also included the label "Michigan raw unfiltered honey." Other users on the subreddit reported that they also had their own local version, stating they had local option from the Great Lakes, California, Texas, and Florida. When the retailer could source local honey, it would, but sometimes there simply wasn't enough supply in the state to be able to do so.

Yet in 2022, this began to change after a self-audit when Costco found that some of its honey wasn't actually from the state it said it was from. It did confirm that the product was truly 100% honey, though.

Honey is one of the most commonly adulterated and faked foods in the world, and there are plenty of reasons to buy local honey, so it can certainly be disappointing to find out that the Kirkland label wasn't accurate. However, since the incident, Costco has taken accountability and temporarily pulled some of the incorrectly labeled bottles from its shelves. It appears that locally sourced honey is now once again available in some states.