Agree. All the prepared food there has gotten absurdly expensive. It used to be cheaper then the semi-premade stuff at Fresh Market, but now Fresh Market is much more reasonable. |
Costco's is a loss leader. It's the same meat quality as the $10 version elsewhere |
It’s probably an overdue chicken rubbed with a heavy load of spices. |
| This is why I get the chickens right at the farm and roast them in my Dutch oven. |
+1. And there's a reason the chickens are way in the very back of the store. |
This! I always was sketched out when Harris Teeter would offer them that cheap. I actually just bought one last night at WF (closest store at the time) and it was $12. I needed it, so I bought it, but it does make $9.99 sound not as bad. |
Yep! Costco's executives have actually gone on the record saying that the chickens are a loss leader. They place them at the back of the store and also place them next to some of their highest margin items--wines, for example, are next to the chicken. Side dishes are also next to the chicken. Costco is also a membership model, and the chickens also apparently entice people to join as members and renew their membership. So some of the loss on the chickens is like a membership advertising expense. |
| I used to love shopping at Wegmans and would get their cheeses, cold cuts, and German wurst. Now I can’t possibly justify spending the money. |
| So? A whole raw chicken isn’t much less |
Sounds delicious |
Wegman's chickens were far superior to others. The only meat I eat is chicken. I also work very long hours, so using rotisserie chicken to make other shortcut meals is something I did at least 3 or 4 days a week. Theirs never tasted very salty and were always very juicy. The chickens from Costco are never good, IMO. The packs of cut up rotisserie chicken meat are vile. I've tried chickens from Walmart (terrible, very salty, very dry), Harris Teeter (2nd best, but I've twice gotten undercooked from them), and Giant (fine, but there's a taste that lingers). The Wegmans taste is still tops, but the quality is just not there. The supplier can claim these chickens are larger but they are full of it. $9.99 for a whole chicken that's cooked for me is still pretty good when a pack of two chicken breasts at HT is $9.98 and then I have to come home and cook them. But there is no way one of Wegmans whole chickens could now easily feed a family of 4. |
| Grocery store rotisserie chicken is gross. |
There is a Wegmans near my office and I would run there a few times a week pre-pandemic to pick up prepared foods. I now work from home full-time but was craving one of their Thanksgiving sandwiches so I ran in there last month and holy cow! The sandwich was up to $12.50 each! The sushi still seemed reasonable. |
It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10? |
| We moved out of the area and I worried that I would miss Wegman's. But I don't miss it. Looking back, I think it was way overpriced for most things. It had good prices on dairy (milk, eggs) and raw chicken, but otherwise it was spendy. I went into one recently on a visit to NOVA, and zowie -- the prices were outrageous compared to what I pay now. They lure you in with the nice aesthetics and size of store, but don't be fooled. It is an expensive store experience. |