Walk into any Costco warehouse, and you’re greeted by towering pallets and the familiar hum of discovery. As you navigate the wide aisles, one name stands out again and again: Kirkland Signature.

From coffee beans to baby wipes, and meats to athletic wear, that red, white, and black logo seems omnipresent. But have you ever stopped to wonder what’s really behind that label? We were fortunate enough to speak with an insider to find out — a former food buyer with a 30-year career with Costco. Let’s peek beyond the towering aisles to see what she has to share.

What is Kirkland Signature?

It’s not your typical generic store brand.

Kirkland Signature is the culmination of a meticulous, quality-obsessed journey that involves dedicated buyers, savvy consumers, and some surprisingly big names in the industry.

And they replicate it among their 890 stores worldwide while still meeting the demands of the local markets it serves all the while maintaining its top trusted brand status.

Kirkland Signature isn’t just successful –  it’s a behemoth, reportedly the “largest consumer packaged brand in the world.”

Not only does this line of products account for about 25% of Costco’s revenues, but its sales outpace giants like Campbell’s, Hershey’s, and Kellogg’s — combined. All the while maintaining smaller margins than your local supermarket.

A Food Buyer’s Journey

So, how does this happen? It starts with Costco’s food buyers, just like the one we spoke with. She started her career overseeing 12 Costco locations, which then grew to managing food purchasing decisions for a whopping 59 locations across California and Hawaii.

Her Costco career path was a culinary adventure, beginning with candy and sundries; moving to pet food; then beer, and wine; the freezer section (where she tasted lasagna every week for six months before finding ‘the one’); and then the refrigerated section before moving back to candy, with the addition of snacks and healthier-for-you items.

Her experience, like other buyers, gave her insights into consumer spending and food trends. She was the first to introduce trending products such as organic juices and Greek yogurts. She saw the potential with Harmless Harvest Coconut Water, Country Archer Jerky, and RXBars. Eventually some of these continued to earn the coveted Kirkland Signature badge.

All buyers are required to be problem solvers. When protein bars weren’t selling well because the pharmacy department selected and managed the products, our buyer — armed with a newly acquired nutrition degree — took over, moved it to the packaged foods section. She then proceeded to revitalize the category to top-seller status, ensuring all Costco warehouses across the country follow suit.

In fact, our buyer’s son, daughter-in-law, and even grandkids work there. And guess where the son and daughter-in-law met? During a pizza-making class on their first day at work. And there’s another Costco-initiated family wedding in the works, too.

The Kirkland Gauntlet: Earning the Signature

What happens when a food buyer has a gap to fill, a trend to introduce, or an amazing product to bring in? With Costco’s unparalleled demand for quality, it’s never as simple as just placing an order.

The first step is the easy part: the taste test. Buyers bring in samples, taste them, and then discuss findings in bi-weekly conferences with their fellow regional buyers. If there’s interest, they might split a pallet to test its sales within their stores.

Once a product gets the initial green light for the coveted Kirkland Signature label, it faces a rigorous benchmarking process. It must meet or exceed the quality of the leading national brands. If it can do that and offer better value, it’s in the running.

This commitment to quality resonates deeply with consumers, who pay a premium to access these stores. So why do people trust Kirkland Signature just as much as national brands? It boils down to several factors:

• Reputation & Consistency: Costco has built trust over time by consistently delivering quality. People know what to expect.
• Quality & Value: The brand delivers on the promise of high quality at a lower price, a crucial factor, especially when wallets feel tighter.
• Transparency & Ethics: Consumers appreciate Costco’s straightforward pricing and ethical practices, trusting that they aren’t being unduly gouged or supporting companies with poor labor practices. Increasingly, ethical sourcing and corporate social responsibility matter, especially to younger shoppers.

Big Names Behind the Label

Here’s where things get really interesting. How does Costco achieve that national-brand-beating quality? Often, by partnering with those very same partners. And many of those same brands are right there on the same shelf, buddied up with their Kirkland Signature counterpart.

Most retailers fear product cannibalization, but Costco leans into it. Every Kirkland Signature product must be better than its name-brand cohort and at a lower price. What makes these partnerships unique versus other store brands is that these aren’t just co-branding exercises. Often, the Kirkland version is a unique formulation, like a specific Starbucks coffee blend developed exclusively for Costco.

With this strategy, Costco gets top-tier manufacturing expertise without the capital expense, and the partner brands gain access to Costco’s massive, loyal membership base and huge volume orders.

But do you still prefer Smithfield-branded pork products, even though the “Kirkland Signature” version is made by the same producer? No worries…just look at the branded product right next to it. But buyer beware: get ready to shell out more bacon at checkout.

The Quality Police: Audits, Inspections, and Non-Negotiables

Partnering with big names isn’t enough; maintaining quality requires constant vigilance. Costco’s quality control process is legendary for its rigor, which is why this process can take up to two years before you see a new Kirkland Signature product grace its shelves.

And it doesn’t stop there.

It starts with traceability.

Costco needs to know where everything comes from. Our buyer mentioned sending teams to shrimp farms in Vietnam and coffee plantations in Hawaii and Costa Rica. This extends to pet food, too, where standards are arguably even stricter now, with Costco’s consumer-centric philosophy recognizing pets as family members.

Traceability systems must allow products to be tracked back to their source rapidly, often tested with mock recalls requiring completion within two hours.

Then come the audits.

Costco’s audit team travels directly to manufacturing plants to ensure they meet not only industry regulations but also Costco’s own stringent requirements. Approved certification bodies conduct annual audits. But they don’t stop there; they also perform unannounced inspections to see how things operate daily. They might even send their own people to shadow third-party audits.

Suppliers must meet minimum audit scores for the product’s relevant categories, such as Food Safety or Traceability. Any audit scores falling below a certain threshold necessitate the implementation of a corrective action plan, demonstrating Costco’s commitment to continuous improvement and addressing any identified deficiencies.

Failure to meet standards has real consequences. Our buyer recalled nixing a deal with a bakery found making breadcrumbs in a kiddie swimming pool. Another manufacturer struggled with proper line cleanouts between different flavored granola bars, a critical step to prevent allergen cross-contamination. Issues like inadequate hand-washing areas or unfair wages can also jeopardize a partnership.

Plus regulated food safety inspections.

Beyond physical inspections, suppliers must implement robust food safety systems, like Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) protocols and the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

This includes allergen control, regular microbiological testing of the environment and finished products, pest management programs, and often X-ray inspection of finished goods.

Crucially, every ingredient is thoroughly tested before acceptance for nutritional value and potential toxins. This relentless testing ensures safety and contributes to that consistent “signature taste”.

Sealing the deal.

All this is formalized in detailed supplier agreements. These contracts cover everything – product specs, delivery terms, quality standards, ethical sourcing, and pricing. Costco holds the cards; they won’t be bound by supplier terms that deviate from their own, and any changes require a formal written agreement. Suppliers also need to prove they can handle Costco’s massive order volumes.

Sourcing the Globe

Where do the ingredients for Kirkland Signature products come from? Everywhere and anywhere the best quality can be found. While many ingredients are sourced domestically for traceability reasons, Costco goes global when needed.

Organic Lemonade might use lemons from Argentina, Spain, and California, with sugar from South America. Pet food might use potato protein from Germany or chicory root from Belgium. Kirkland Extra Virgin Olive Oil meets international standards and is often sourced from California.

Chocolate involves traceable cocoa beans, often from the Ivory Coast, focusing on sustainability and labor. Tilapia is raised without antibiotics in deep-water reservoirs near the equator by a zero-waste-committed company.

Costco is able to manage these products from all over the globe with its warehouses that play a central role in its distribution network. The company operates centralized warehousing operations to supply its stores, ensuring a smooth flow of goods.

Tackling the Trends

Costco also keeps a close pulse on what its members want. They pay for their annual membership after all, so they should have a say in where their dollars go.

The food buyers assess sales data and gather member feedback to spot trends – organic, gluten-free, keto, pet health, you name it. Their frequent meetings give them the opportunity for idea generation and collaboration to continually be at the forefront of trends, sometimes even before they happen.

For instance, our buyer recalls assessing a particular brand of non-dairy, shelf-stable coffee creamer, one of Costco’s popular office food products. Upon closer examination, she found that this one product was made with dozens of ingredients during a time when consumers started demanding just a few, readily identifiable ingredients listed on a package.

She spent two weeks working directly with the vendor at their plant to reformulate and taste-test what would become their Natural Bliss line. Initially, it didn’t fly off the shelves, but years later, as consumer awareness of ingredients grew, it became a massive hit – a testament to foresight and staying ahead of consumer trends.

Sustainability is also increasingly woven into the fabric of Kirkland Signature. Costco aims for all Kirkland packaging to be recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025, reflecting a commitment to environmental responsibility that resonates with modern consumers.

What about tariffs?

The anticipated tariff increases may prove to be a sourcing test for Costco as consumers look for more ways to stretch their shrinking dollars. Though our buyer had never experienced a period akin to what many of us are expecting, she expects pricing to be less volatile than you’d see in grocery stores.

Source: Mintel

She also reminded us that tariffs have been in place for years. Costco has navigated these ongoing issues with the help of its ironclad contracts, bulk ordering, and pricing expectations.

More Than Just a Label

So, the next time you toss that giant bag of Kirkland Signature trail mix or bottle of olive oil into your cart, take a moment. You’re not just buying a product; you’re buying the result of an intricate dance involving sharp-eyed buyers, global sourcing expeditions, partnerships with industry leaders, relentless quality checks, and a deep understanding of what shoppers truly value.

And that, in a Kirkland Signature nutshell, is the secret to its success.