15 Secrets of the $4.99 Costco Rotisserie Chicken

For just $4.99 you get a fully cooked and seasoned, ready-to-eat 3-pound bird.

The national cost of chicken breast averages $3 per pound, but one entire pre-cooked chicken from Costco is just $4.99, which breaks down to $1.67 per pound.

Costco loses an estimated 30 to 40 million dollars a year by sticking to a $4.99 price point. But the low-cost meal keeps members happy and foot traffic high.

There’s a slight chance that you’ll make the trek to Costco only to buy the chicken, but can you make it to the register without grabbing other items first? Costco might be losing money on its rotisserie chicken, but the product gives customers an incentive to come in and, in turn, stimulates them to buy more profitable items on the way out. This type of product is what’s called a “loss leader.”

This is common with almost all supermarket rotisserie chickens, which are shipped from a supplier pre-seasoned with special spice blends and ready to put on the spit to cook.

Some supermarket chickens contain gluten in seasonings and marinades. Costco avoids using anything that contains gluten in its rotisserie birds.

Fans of the Costco rotisserie post recipes and share ideas on how to use the chicken on a dedicated Facebook page with about 17,000 followers.

Each Costco chicken is reportedly injected with a saltwater solution in order to brine it; that’s how the meat stays so juicy. It’s high in sodium, but don’t let that scare you away. Salt can actually be quite good for you.

In 2015, Costco announced its plan to gradually eliminate the use of meats containing antibiotics. The company’s current policy is to limit their suppliers use of antibiotics to only the prevention, control and treatment of disease meaning your chicken wasn't pumped full of antibiotics to make it grow larger.

Even Dr. Oz says this may be “one of the healthiest processed foods out there.” The ingredients listed on the label of a Costco rotisserie chicken are: whole chicken, water and seasonings (salt, sodium phosphate, modified food starch, potato dextrin, carrageenan, sugar, dextrose, spice extractives).

Some of those words might make you scratch your head, but they’re generally considered safe. The sodium phosphate is used to keep the meat moist and to prevent spoilage, and the carrageenan, which is derived from red seaweed, also helps prevent spoilage.

For each 3.5-ounce serving of the Costco chicken, there are 138 calories, 347 milligrams of sodium, 6 grams of fat and 17 grams of protein.

Costco sells a mind-blowing 60 million chickens each year on average.

If you do the math, Costco sells approximately 164,383 rotisserie chickens every day during the regular calendar year.

Costco has built a massive campus of buildings in Nebraska to grow and process its chickens, and when it’s fully operational, it will be able to process 2 million chickens per week, or an astonishing 100 million per year. Shockingly, this will only account for one-third of the chicken (both raw and cooked) sold by Costco.

While one single chicken for a week's worth of dinners might be a stretch, you can definitely make the most of this Costco chicken by planning your week and enjoying it in one of these brilliant ways to use up leftover chicken. It’s no wonder the rotisserie chicken made our list of 23 cult-favorite Costco foods you need to add to your cart.

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