The Major Brand Behind Costco's Kirkland Signature Bottled Water

If you see someone with Kirkland Signature branded items, you know their ideal place to shop. Costco's signature brand is massively popular among proud members of the exclusive store, as it's often seen as high-quality for a relatively low price. When a brand's quality is trusted by the masses and its prices remain low, it's hard to find many downsides when you are an avid buyer of Kirkland Signature products.

This has created a strong fanbase for the products themselves, with Kirkland Signature-branded bottled water being no exception. Many people swear by this brand of water, considering it better than any other bottled water brand in the market by a large margin. That's why it often shocks these Costco regulars to learn that Kirkland Signature water is not an original item produced by the brand.

In fact, most Kirkland Signature brands aren't original or exclusive to the membership-only grocery store. Instead, many of them are manufactured by third-party brands, many of which you have likely heard of. In the case of Kirkland Signature's bottled water, the credit must go to none other than Niagara Bottling, LLC.

Niagara Bottling is a company in the bottled water industry based out of Irvine, California. While Niagara Bottling might not initially ring any bells, its status as the premier private-label bottled water company is well-earned. Numerous bottled water brands, like 7-Eleven's 7-Select, come from Niagara Bottling — though the fact that the company sells products for other brands to put their label on makes it difficult to tell exactly the extent of Niagara's portfolio.

This is one of many examples of Kirkland Signature's fascinating system. The private-label brand handles almost none of its own manufacturing and instead has deals with countless third-party companies to make their products come to be. This means that, when you're buying a Kirkland Signature product, you're more so purchasing a product that Costco trusts enough to give their own Kirkland Signature seal of approval.

Luckily, this doesn't change much from a consumer's perspective. While it may feel strange to realize that Kirkland Signature bottled water is effectively the same product as Signature Select bottled water, Costco's in-house brand does still have one thing that nobody can take away from it -– the price. Despite being the same product, Kirkland Signature often offers lower prices than what others operating through the same third-party manufacturers can. This means you can quite literally get the same exact product for far lower prices, with the only difference being the black, white, and red labeling that comes with it.