Does Costco Sell Kosher Food? Here's What You Need To Know

If you have a kosher shopping list, you may wonder which stores are your best bets for finding what you need. Is wholesale giant Costco, for instance, a good option? Costco offers a variety of kosher goods, but possibly not everything you're looking for. It largely depends on location.

Costco Wholesale's customer service website states that many of its warehouses keep kosher goods regularly stocked. To find out if your Costco is one of them, you have to inquire at your local store — it's definitely not a standard practice across all locations. The world's smallest Costco store in Juneau, Alaska, for instance, is less likely to have the kosher options you want compared with a larger warehouse in a more populated area. The world's busiest Costco, located in Iwilei, Hawaii, has a much lower-than-average assortment of kosher goods.

Customers report that Costco stores in locales with high Jewish populations are much more likely to stock a plentiful kosher assortment. If enough patrons request these items, Costcos have been known to begin carrying them specifically to suit the local demographic. Some warehouse stores even have dedicated kosher sections. For the ones that do, customers report finding kosher poultry, beef, frozen meats, dairy products, baked goods, and even knishes.

One example is the Costco Business Center located in Southfield, Michigan, which is in the Detroit metro area. One of the biggest Jewish communities in the United States is found in metro Detroit, and the kosher findings at this Costco location certainly reflect that. Over 900 kosher food items are available for local delivery from this venue.

If the Costco you shop at is not near a Jewish neighborhood or doesn't have a dedicated kosher section, you can still find a fair number of kosher foods — the variety is just more limited. Across the general spectrum of Costco stores and the company's online ordering options, kosher items that are more universally available include things like coffee and other beverages, dry goods and pantry items, snack foods, candy, some organic goods, and even some popular Kirkland Signature products — which can also be found at other stores outside of Costco, incidentally. If you're looking for things like kosher meats and dairy products, though, a Costco warehouse run (with the caveat, again, of location) or an online purchase is less likely to check off your boxes.

When shopping kosher at Costco, your best bet overall is a Costco Business Center. These stores carry hundreds of items that aren't available in Costco warehouse locations, and kosher goods are no exception. Costco Business Centers, whether located near a high Jewish demographic or not, tend to vend significantly more kosher goods than the warehouse stores, consumers note. The good news is that while these Costco venues cater to businesses rather than individual households, anyone with a Costco membership card can shop there. The bad news is there are significantly fewer Costco Business Centers to shop at — less than 30 total, compared with hundreds of Costco Wholesale warehouses nationwide.