Costco Slapped With Lawsuit Over Beloved Item
- Precious Metals Are Pricier Than Ever. Is Your Jewelry Properly Insured?
- Tax Season Officially Opens Today. Here's What to Know About Claiming Your 2025 Refund
- Using Your 401(k) to Buy a House Sounds Tempting. Financial Planners Say It’s a Mistake
- Are Trump's $2,000 Tariff Refund Checks Still Happening?
- Can Trump Actually Cap Credit Card Interest Rates at 10%?
Things are heating up for Costco's famous $5 rotisserie chicken — now in the legal hot seat over a proposed class-action lawsuit.
A complaint filed in January in California accuses Costco of falsely advertising its rotisserie chicken as preservative-free and alleges that the warehouse club “cheated” customers who believed that description out of as much as hundreds of millions of dollars.
Deals We Love
"Despite Costco's 'No Preservatives' Representations, Costco uses the additives sodium phosphate and carrageenan," the complaint reads.
Sodium phosphate is used to retain moisture; it also extends shelf life. Carrageenan, a thickener that comes from seaweed, is used for the same purpose.
The lawsuit says Costco shouldn't have advertised the chicken as containing no preservatives, arguing that the company "knew or should have known that the presence of these additives would be material" information for shoppers. It contends that, although sodium phosphate and carrageenan are listed on the ingredients on the packaging itself, Costco misled customers by putting that information in smaller print on the back.
The suit also accuses Costco of unfair competition on the grounds that customers paid more for the chicken than they otherwise would have if it hadnt been advertised as preservative-free.
In a statement to the New York Times, Costco said it had changed in-store and online signage to remove claims of being preservative-free. It told the newspaper the two additives that triggered the lawsuit were used for "moisture retention, texture and product consistency," adding that "both ingredients are approved by food safety authorities."
If the plaintiffs win class-action certification, the class could potentially include anyone who ever bought Costco's popular prepared chicken.
The two plaintiffs, who are also seeking unspecified monetary damages, each said in the lawsuit that they would not have purchased the chicken if they had known it contained these ingredients. The complaint also says, though, that each plaintiff "intends to purchase the Rotisserie Chicken in the future."