Costco VS Sam's Club: Which Meat Department Is Best?

The quality and prices at a grocery meat department can easily make or break a shopping trip. While Costco is known for its wide variety and high quality, Sam's Club is a strong contender with reasonable prices and good selection. Both stores stock a wide array of meats, from staples like pork, chicken, beef, and fish to rarer finds such as lamb and sushi. With quality and pricing varying by location or even time of year, it can be challenging to determine which meat department is truly the best.

To help answer this question, I'll draw on my own experience switching from Costco to Sam's Club and explore what other long-time customers say about the quality, selection, and affordability of each warehouse's meat department. Whether you're looking for cheap chicken at Sam's Club or the best beef cuts at Costco, let the carnivore contest begin.

Costco is committed to the organic game. So much so that they are the largest organic food retailer in the United States, having surpassed $6 billion in organic food sales in 2024. From Kirkland brand grass-fed organic ground beef to different cuts of organic chicken, Costco has no shortage of organic meats. The store even makes it easy to spot its organic products by advertising prices with green tags instead of the usual white ones.

Sam's Club does have organic foods worth buying as well, but its selection isn't as extensive as Costco's. While their affordably priced organic ground beef offers a great alternative to the Kirkland brand option, other meat choices are limited. Many customers report finding only organic ground beef and chicken, with other organic cuts scarce.

If the health and ethics of organic eating are important to you and your family, buying your meat from Costco, the king of organics, is your best bet.

Getting to the meat section of a warehouse store requires a bit of a hike. Both Costco and Sam's Club feature their meat department at the back of the store. This is partly for better food safety, but mostly to encourage you to browse and buy items you didn't know you needed until you saw them. Once you've made your meat selections, you then need to hike all the way back to the front of the store for checkout, wait in line, and then scan each item before finally paying and leaving. Or do you?

Sam's Club offers a Scan & Go option on their app that makes checkout quick and easy. As you add items to your cart, you can scan them to add them to your virtual cart. And once you are finished shopping, you simply check out in the app and walk out the front door, with nothing more than maybe a brief security check. For meat purchases, this system offers more than just convenience; it can also improve food safety and reduce cross-contamination.

For example, skipping the long checkout line means you can get your meat home and refrigerated faster. Now imagine you have a leaky package of meat. If you use Costco self-checkout, you risk getting meat juices on the table, the scanner, and even the POS system. If the thought of this makes you go "ugh," then maybe Scan and Go at Sam's Club will be your new best friend.

Finding meat on sale is like the holy grail of grocery shopping deal hunting. There's nothing quite like the excitement of seeing that $12 per pound skirt steak marked down to $7.99 per pound. For 3 pounds of skirt steak, that's more than $12 in savings.

Meat deals like this are easy to find at Sam's Club. By keeping your eyes peeled for those distinct yellow and orange markdown stickers, you can find some great savings. Especially if you can find the already affordable Member's Mark meat products on clearance. While there is no set day for these markdowns, many customers suggest shopping early in the morning so you can snag discounted meats before other shoppers do.

For Costco shoppers, meat markdowns really are the holy grail because they are super rare. Instead of discounting their meat as other stores do, they often repurpose cuts. For example, taking unsold beef and turning it into ground beef, or using unsold chicken to make pasta or tacos. It has even been suggested that Costco is generous, donating unsold meat items to food banks and other charitable organizations.

Variety is the spice of life, and sometimes you just get tired of eating chicken breasts and pork chops. Well, how does cooking up a whole trout sound? Or sinking your teeth into some wild game? Costco might have your fix.

For adventurous eaters, or those just looking to try something new, Costco's meat department often features a range of products you just can't get at other warehouse clubs and grocery stores. Their whole steelhead trout is a popular pick. And specialty sausages like alligator snacks (on occasion) or queso smoked wagyu are fantastic finds. Depending on your location and the time of year, you may find other exotic options like wild game, head-on shrimp, and bison burgers. For those lucky enough to live near a Costco Business Center, whole goat and lamb can be found. And for extra luxury, Costco has an excellent selection of wagyu that can be purchased online.

In contrast, at Sam's Club, most of the exotic seafood options are only sold frozen or at select locations. And no wild game graces the shelves. Probably the only "rare" or uncommon type of meat you will spot at Sam's is a range of lamb products.

Pork populates the shelves at both Sam's Club and Costco. From bacon and ham to chops and whole loins, you'll find many popular cuts of pork at both stores. And there is no significant difference in quality. Prices are also comparable, with Sam's Club slightly cheaper on bulk options like whole boneless pork loin.

Where Costco beats out Sam's Club is the available cuts of pork in the meat case. There are approximately 12 main cuts or preparations of pork, and you'll find all of them at Costco. Pork belly is one they stock that you often won't see at Sam's Club — a great find if you want to braise it and serve it in a bowl of ramen, or smoke it to make your own bacon. In general, you'll find a wider range of bone-in, bone-out, and skin-on pork cuts at the average Costco compared to Sam's Club.

Where's the beef? You'll find a good selection of it at both Costco and Sam's Club. But differences in quality, price, and process may leave Sam's Club the beef winner.

At Costco, you'll find steaks galore, along with large chubs of ground beef, and a wide range of grass-fed or high-grade USDA Prime beef products. When it comes to quality, Costco wins, but the price tag this beef comes with can leave you with sticker shock. However, the real deal-killer is Costco's beef preparation process.

For individual cuts, like steaks, Costco uses blade tenderization, which is where the meat is pierced with blades (or needles) to help break up muscle fibers. According to the USDA, this can pose a health risk. If the primal cut the steak was sliced from had bacteria on the outside, these needles/blades could inject that bacteria deep into the meat, contaminating it. While the risk is generally low when all food safety standards are followed, if it's not something you want to chance, then stick to Sam's Club, non-blade-tenderized beef.

Seafood, more so than other types of meat, is seasonal, especially the wild-caught stuff. What your Sam's Club or Costco meat department has today might be different next week, or next month. Both stores stock wild-caught and farm-raised options, but you'll find more variety at Costco. Head-on shrimp, sockeye salmon, steelhead trout, and more can be found in the Costco fish and seafood displays. The downside is price.

The Member's Mark brand is often significantly cheaper than Costco's Kirkland brand. For example, salmon is one of several items where Sam's Club beat out Costco's price. While the selection may be less broad, Sam's Club more than makes up for it with savings.

Another great steal you'll find in the seafood section at Sam's is fresh-made sushi. Prepared under the Member's Mark brand, you'll find individual rolls and sushi platters crafted fresh in the store. And the prices, when compared to your local sushi restaurant, are phenomenally low. In a recent trip I made to Sam's, I scored the large sushi platter for $25, and you don't want to know how much the same amount of sushi would have cost me at my local sushi place.

In 2025, it was reported that 581 of Sam's Club's 600 locations sold sushi. Compared to Costco's slow rollout of sushi in select locations, sushi and seafood fans may want to stick to Sam's Club for now.

Lamb is not as popular in the United States as it is in other countries. Back in the '60s, people were eating 5 pounds of lamb and mutton per person in the U.S. Now it's closer to 1 pound per person, according to USDA findings. Still, for those who are well acquainted with the tender, rich, and slightly gamey flavor, nothing else quite compares to this delectable meat.

But because it's not a popular protein, it can be hard to find. Luckily, both Sam's Club and Costco stock it in their meat departments. While availability might vary by location, cuts of lamb and sheep can be found. Especially during the holiday period between Christmas and Easter, with lamb chops, rack of lamb, and leg of lamb being the most common ones you'll see in stores.

If you can't find lamb at your local store, Sam's Club and Costco also sell it online. And the quality is largely the same, with both Sam's Club and Costco sourcing their lamb products from New Zealand and Australia.

As the most eaten meat in the United States, it's no surprise that both Costco and Sam's Club offer solid chicken options. Wings, drumsticks, thighs, breasts, tenders, and whole birds stock the shelves at all locations. There's also the delicious rotisserie chicken, but for now let's stick to talking about the uncooked stuff.

To meet poultry demand, chicken production is growing. It's estimated that in 2026 there will be 102.8 pounds of chicken available per person in the U.S. At Costco, this chicken often comes in the form of prepackaged organic wings, breasts, and thighs. Having access to affordable organic chicken like this is great, but the packaging leaves something to be desired. Separating one package from the next can result in accidentally tearing both open. And sometimes the packages are leaky to begin with, as many customers report.

At Sam's Club, most of the chicken products are non-organic, which does offer some savings compared to Costco's organic chicken. And the packages are similar, with the same pre-portioned vacuum-sealed packs that, honestly, most customers find more annoying than helpful. Sam's Club didn't always package their chicken this way. They used to use the traditional tray with an absorbent pad and clear stretch film setup, but they started switching over to the plastic perforated packaging in the last few years.

Considering the poultry parallels, which store has the best chicken comes down to whether you prefer Costco's better-quality organic, or Sam's Club's low-cost non-organic options.

After comparing the meat departments at both warehouse stores, we picked Sam's Club as the overall winner, largely thanks to affordability. But the win isn't by much, and it doesn't guarantee that you'll prefer your local Sam's Club meat department over your local Costco's.

At most Costco locations, you will get a larger selection of fresh protein compared to Sam's. From seasonal fish to a wider array of pork cuts. And the quality of the meat is great, with plenty of organic and grass-fed options available. However, this comes at a price. Not only are meat prices a little higher than Sam's Club, but you may also get locked into buying the pricier organic option. For example, my own local Costco store only sells organic chicken breasts, not the cheaper non-organic ones.

At Sam's Club, you'll find fewer organic options and less variety in general, but what they do stock is good quality and cheaper in price compared to Costco. Add in the improved food safety of not using blade tenderization and having speedy checkout, and it's enough for Sam's Club to edge out Costco on having the best meat department. Still, if you prefer organic and don't mind the higher price tag that comes with it, then Costco may be a better pick for you.

In order to keep things fair when comparing the two stores, we considered a variety of factors. Our major focus points were pricing, availability, and quality. We weighed each of these factors in relation to individual meat categories like chicken, beef, and fish, as well as related meat purchasing features, such as food safety. We also looked at regional differences and consumer experiences, including my own experience at the two warehouse stores.

In the end, while a few categories like chicken and lamb were too close to call, Sam's Club was the clear winner in four distinct categories compared to three for Costco. This led us to declare Sam's Club as the winner for having a better overall meat department than Costco.