Inside Costco’s Chicken Supply Chain: Salmonella Contamination and the True Costs of the $4.99 Rotisserie Chicken

Issue Brief

For millions of Costco shoppers, a $4.99 rotisserie chicken is more than dinner—it’s a cultural icon.

The Costco chicken is convenient and notoriously cheap, an automatic purchase for millions of Americans every time they visit the store. It’s also a key part of Costco’s brand identity: a symbol of quality, consistency, and member value. But few consumers know that Costco’s chicken brings high rates of salmonella contamination into its stores.

Costco’s Lincoln Premium Poultry (LPP) plant in Fremont, Nebraska, slaughters over 100 million chickens annually for two of Costco’s most popular products—rotisserie chicken and raw chicken breasts sold under the Kirkland Signature brand. But the plant consistently fails USDA salmonella safety standards year after year, sending contaminated chicken to Costco stores nationwide. The high level of salmonella contamination in Costco’s chickens is closely tied to overcrowded, poorly ventilated barns; birds bred to grow unnaturally fast, causing their legs to buckle under their own weight; and stressful transport and handling. This chronically poor animal welfare both weakens birds’ immune systems and provides a breeding ground for pathogens, increasing the spread of disease.

Farm Forward analyzed USDA salmonella regulations, inspection records, and humane handling reports to investigate the extent of salmonella contamination in the poultry industry, and any overlap between inhumane handling and higher rates of contamination. We found clear indicators of irresponsibility and disregard for consumer well-being, adding to a broader pattern of neglect across Costco’s poultry supply chain:

• Salmonella contamination: Costco repeatedly exceeds federal limits, sending unsafe chickens to stores nationwide—more than 1 in 10 whole birds and 1 in 6 packages of chicken breasts are contaminated.
• Humane handling violations: Genetically modified birds live in ammonia-filled, overcrowded barns, often collapse under their own weight, struggle to reach food and water, and are routinely deprived of both during transport, weakening their immune systems and underscoring the link between cruelty and disease spread.
• Established labor and environmental abuses: Workers endure unsafe conditions, contract growers face crushing debt and production pressure, and poultry waste pollutes local waterways, compounding risks to both human and animal health.

Costco’s persistent salmonella failures are not just a food safety problem—they reflect systemic failures in animal welfare, labor practices, and environmental stewardship. Until the company addresses how it raises animals for food, the true costs of those $4.99 rotisserie chickens will extend far beyond the checkout.