Here's What Costco Does With All Its Unsold Bakery Items
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food waste, which is 30-40% of the entire food supply, cost a whopping $161 billion in 2010. If that statistic makes your stomach churn, you'll love Costco's food donation program, which reduces waste by supporting communities in need. When a bakery item passes its sell-by date or no longer meets Costco's freshness standards, it is packaged and dropped off at a nearby food bank, homeless shelter, or church. These bakery donations include muffins, bagels, loaves of bread, cookies, and even the Costco favorite buttery croissants, among other items.
Costco secures these partnerships through Feeding America, a nonprofit that has matched local charities to 560 warehouse locations nationwide. And this partnership (one of the many secrets of the Costco bakery) doesn't only cover baked goods; Costco's innovative, sustainable approach to reducing food waste extends to other perishable items as well.
What does Costco do with perishable food leftovers?
In 2017, Costco introduced a program in San Diego, California, to donate perishable goods to food banks and Feeding America partners. The process was built into standard warehouse operations, giving team members the option to pull cases of produce that look wilted, bruised, or otherwise damaged, but still edible. These items are stored in a cooler and picked up by volunteers from area shelters to be distributed to the people who need them the most. Three years after instituting this plan, produce accounted for 37% of Costco's perishable donations in the U.S.
Another way Costco reduces food waste is by reusing leftover proteins in their prepared foods. For example, when not enough people respond to Costco's signature rotisserie chicken bell, the leftover chicken is used in soups, pot pies, and pasta entrees. Foods not fit for human consumption are often used as feed for pigs at farms close to a warehouse location, or for cattle in Canada and Japan. Rest assured that Costco is doing its part to feed more people and decrease food waste as much as possible.