THL
Behind the low cost of this cheap meat, is a big cost—the painful suffering of smart, cuddly, and curious chickens.
In 2020 alone, Costco sold more than 100 million of its rotisserie chickens. That’s close to 300,000 chickens, on average, every single day. Its suspiciously cheap price tag of just $4.99 tells a deeper story—one that would ruffle the feathers of anyone who is opposed to the abuse of animals—dog, cat, cow, or chicken. You see, behind the low cost of this cheap meat, is a big cost—the painful suffering of smart, cuddly, and curious chickens. These abuses are among the worst in the poultry industry.
So, how can Costco sell a whole chicken at such a low price? The answer is intensive factory farming, standard but violent industry practices, and Costco’s vertically integrated control of much of its chicken supply chain from the top, down.
What Is Costco Rotisserie Chicken?
Rotisserie chickens are cooked in a rotisserie oven, in which the meat is turned on a skewer called a “spit,” and cooked using high convection heat. Costco sells whole rotisserie chickens—each a once-living bird.
Where Does Costco Get Its Chicken?
As Costco seeks to cut out the "middleman" and with it, costs, it has constructed a $450 million complex in Fremont, Nebraska. Opened in October 2019, the vision is for this single facility to process 100 million chickens a year. These chickens will spend their entire short lives in or near this complex, which includes a feed mill, hatchery, and processing plant—otherwise known as a slaughterhouse—where a staggering 2 million birds are slaughtered every week.
But Costco’s impact doesn’t stop at the doors of this massive factory farm. Its operation reportedly requires more than 100 chicken farms in the surrounding area to raise even more birds for food.
Why Is Costco Rotisserie Chicken So Cheap?
Costco has priced its rotisserie chicken at $4.99 since 2009, according to CNN, but in order to continue selling at that price today, the company has made a change that cut costs and put itself in direct competition with some of the nation’s biggest chicken producers, including the behemoth Tyson Foods. Costco’s Nebraska plant is vertically integrated, which means that through the company Lincoln Premium Poultry, Costco orchestrates the entire process, from hatching to slaughter. According to Lincoln Premium Poultry, its farms in Nebraska and Iowa supply about 40 percent of Costco’s rotisserie chickens. The remainder comes from other suppliers.
Earlier this year, a New York Times op-ed, broke a Mercy For Animals investigation of a Costco supplier. As Nicholas Kristof notes, “Someday, I think, future generations will look back at our mistreatment of livestock and poultry with pain and bafflement. They will wonder how we in the early 21st century could have been so oblivious to the cruelties that delivered $4.99 chickens to a Costco rotisserie.”
What’s Wrong with Costco Rotisserie Chicken?
Behind Costco’s neatly packaged products lies a harsh truth: for Costco to make cheap chicken, millions of birds pay a devastating price.
The undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals revealed tens of thousands of chickens confined in overcrowded and filthy barns at a farm supplying Lincoln Premium Poultry—the poultry complex established for, and owned by, Costco. Some suffered from broken bones or open wounds. Many birds—bred to grow unnaturally large and fast—struggled to walk or support their own body weight.
“Torture a single chicken in your backyard, and you risk arrest. Abuse tens of millions of them? Why, that’s agribusiness,” says Kristof, who also notes that the low prices offered to customers by today’s intensive poultry industry are possible due, in part, to “developing chickens that effectively are bred to suffer.”
Are Costco Chickens Healthy?
The Mercy For Animals investigation uncovered “large piles of dead, rotting animals,” some of whom had died of organ failure, others who had collapsed and were unable to stand up again due to their weak or broken bones. Though the investigative footage may speak for itself, Jessica Kolterman, a spokesperson for Costco’s Lincoln Premium Poultry, said the video highlights the 4-5 percent of its chickens who die before slaughter, which she notes is the industry’s average—a low bar comparison for a company who claims to be a good, ethical company.
The chickens raised by and for Costco are bred to grow dangerously big, dangerously fast. In fact, a study released by the Global Animal Partnership in 2020 examining 16 strains of broiler chickens found that selective breeding for rapid growth causes birds to suffer deformities, muscle myopathy, and other ailments that leave these chickens far from healthy—all before they end up in a Costco rotisserie when they are just 6-7 weeks old.
Why Should You Not Buy Costco Chicken?
Although Costco claims that “animal welfare is part of Costco’s culture and responsibility,” consumers should know that the company has not taken significant action to protect the chickens in its supply chain from even the worst abuses found in the poultry industry at large.
With Costco in control of its vertically integrated chicken supply, it can also control the quality of life, and health, of the chickens it raises for food. Millions of birds are suffering and dying for its cheap rotisserie chicken each and every day. Costco has the power, and the responsibility, to change this sad reality.
Thus far, Costco has neglected to sign on to the Better Chicken Commitment, a set of welfare standards that end the worst abuses experienced by chickens raised for meat. The Humane League and Mercy For Animals are demanding that Costco adopt this crucial commitment, to spare the chickens raised by and for Costco from an unhealthy life of abuse and abject suffering.
By signing onto the commitment, Costco would agree to shift away from the breeding of birds for rapid growth that leaves thousands of animals in chronic pain, unable to stand. For some chickens, their oversized bodies lead them to die from heart failure, on a floor covered in feces, as documented in the investigations. The company would also prohibit the senseless and cruel practice of live-shackle slaughter, in which each chicken is violently hung upside-down in metal shackles, making it difficult for the birds to breathe as they face the final horrifying moments of their life. As they are moved down the line, chickens reach an electrified water bath meant to stun them—but many will remain conscious or not be stunned at all as they struggle, hopelessly, to free themselves. Alarmingly, millions of birds are still conscious when their throats are slit and some are even tragically boiled alive.
What Can You Do?
The simplest and fastest way to make an impact is to urge Costco to sign on to the Better Chicken Commitment. Tens of thousands of concerned consumers like you are [asking Costco] (http://actnow.thehumaneleague.org/corporate-cruelty/?utm_source=costco+chicken+cost&utm_medium=blog&ms=c_blog) to end the worst abuses in the chicken industry today, including the breeding of birds for painful, rapid growth and the needless and violent practice of live-shackle slaughter.
With this one step that’s already taken by 200 major food companies, Costco—one of the largest retailers in the world—would put an end to these practices in its supply chain and lead by example, while reducing the suffering of millions of chickens.
