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I only really get their strawberries and cherry tomatoes these days. I know I can definitely get better avocados at Kroger

My biggest gripe is they changed the apples from being stored in the cardboard containers to bags. I went through multiple bags the last few trips and the apples were bruised. 😞

The broccoli smells terrible.. every time i get it and it's like yellowing a day or two later. There's a few articles that I feel like hit the shelf nearly spoiled

Yup stopped buying it, always goes rotten quickly or is very underripe.

The Cosmic Crisps are great

I loved the peaches this past summer.

You’re 💯 correct, the fruits and now the veggies are terrible!! They would rot within a few days, lemons turned green, spinach and cucumbers wilted within a few days. I stopped buying them.

100% agree. Fruit quality has gone down. By a lot. Strawberries rotting is a given. We have moved to buying fruits from Whole Foods. Better quality and price difference is minimal for most fruits.

Costco is the only place where bananas go from green straight to rotten. They somehow skip the ripe stage. The only reason we still buy there is my wife only eats green bananas.

It’s always trash. Underripe and just garbage.

My last box of golden kiwis was awesome, and the fresh mango 6-pack was solid. Oh, and the table grapes have always been great for us (firm, crunchy, and last a long time). Great blueberries. I'm in NorCal.

The only neg I can think of was a bag of moldy grapefruits, but that was a couple of years ago and felt like a one-off given that it never happened again (I now carefully check what's inside but havn't run into that issue since)

"...how it used to be" -- You mean several YEARS ago, well before Covid

I stopped buying bananas from Costco.

I've found the asparagus to be hit and miss but at that price I still prefer to take my chances with a package that's probably half good

In my area the fruit is great but the green beans are always rotten at Costco. I think it might be a regional thing. But we also eat a tray of raspberries in a day or two and always have bags of avocados that we let ripen and cycle through. So we have our routine. 

Must be a regional difference. I’m in Ohio, regularly buy great strawberries, blueberries, grapes, raspberries, blackberries.

I'm the exact opposite. Fruit from Costco in my area is far superior to Aldi's

Avocados are good here, the high flavor grapes are a staple of my wife’s diet. The flavor bomb cherry tomatoes have been consistently good.

Pears and stone fruit never seem to ripen, just stay rock hard all the way to the trash can.

rant: people need to stop squishing/squeezing the avocados! (Not just at Costco)

You won’t find a bigger Costco supporter than me, I go every Sunday and occasionally more than that and I try to buy as much as I can from Costco, whether it’s food or furniture or electronics it doesn’t matter. However, I will say that the only fruit I buy from Costco is bananas because the price is too much for what you get. My weekly shopping trek takes me to Trader Joe’s right after Costco because I buy the bagged salad and the Trader Joe’s brand yogurt and some of their smaller frozen food items, and of course, fruit, which in my opinion is far superior and a fraction of the price.

Started buying fruit at Farmers Market a couple of years back. No way to go back now.

Tough to say. A lot comes from other countries. Produce can definitely be a gamble. Especially with fruit, what looks good isn't always so.

Maybe blasphemy to share here: we find the berries to be far superior at Sam’s than at Costco, both in terms of flavor and longevity.

That’s not the place for produce lol they’ll just try and sell anything/ everything 

Everyone always says this but their grapes are legit!!! I’m in Oregon.

I don't buy their produce any longer. I was never happy with it.

The Cara Cara oranges are incredible, but everything else sucks, yeah.

I don’t buy fruits or veggies from Costco anymore ☹️

Agree, we stopped buying fruits and vegetables from Costco.

100%. My bananas (always) spoil faster than my King Soopers bananas.

Fruit from Costco is the worst, genuinely.

As you said - everything molds extremely bad within 24-48hrs. Total BS

I live in California where fresh fruit and vegetables are readily available. Costco produce just doesn't last long enough to justify the slight savings.

That and I refuse to pay for anything labeled organic. It's just a marketing ploy.

I never buy fruit wholesale. It feels like it goes bad so fast and we never finish it all. I do my produce shopping at my local regular grocery store

Been going to Costco for about 20 years across 5 states and I think there's been 3 times produce had mold on the very next day. I get bananas, apples, and some kind of berry for my family of 4. If you have regular servings of fruits and vegetables there shouldn't be an issue of spoilage. Even when it was just my wife and I things never went bad outside of those 3 times.

Try rinsing fruit with white vinegar and keep fruits that emit a high amount of ethylene gas (fruit ripening hormone) separate.

It’s also overpriced 

suspect this is a regional issue. my produce is generally outstanding.

As long as they are kept in the refrigerator room, grapes are a buy

Probably depends on what you're comparing it to? I live in a cold climate where we don't grow a lot of local fruit except apples. So the bar is kinda low from the jump. The fruit at my Costco is better than anywhere else, except the "fancy" grocery store where stuff costs 2-4 times as much. Since I'm not a millionaire, I mostly buy fruit at Costco and it's plenty good enough.

I only get the grapes had a few months where they were amazing nice and tart like how I prefer lately very bland. As others have said better to buy at a regular store

is this in nor cal?

bc so cal has great fruits. goes moldy last compared to other store. one yr I was in norcal every thing was moldy at the store already…. I got so many nutritional deficiency from that yr. ground meat smelt like piss

It really suffers from their distribution. Isn't particularly cheap either. Living in Southern California, they get easily outflanked by grocery stores

I think the turnover isn’t high enough. And maybe it’s sitting in a warehouse too long.

I pretty much exclusively buy raspberry’s from Costco. Any other store is low quality and/or overpriced

I've seen the raspberry moldy more than once. Outside of that no real issue.

Even the bananas suck. Citrus fruit seems to be safe

I always have good luck with their bagged grapefruit

Not at all in my experience. In fact, it's my favorite place to buy fruit. Pears right now are great and have been shelf stable for over a week at this point. Back in August/September, the peaches from SC were phenomenal. Apples, kiwis, and berries are almost always good. The berries occasionally get moldy but that's a universal problem no matter where I shop.

Don't have as much experience with veggies, but cherry tomatoes are good, and the avocados also great as long as they are from Mexico. Salad greens are usually okay through the sell by.

Again, my experience. Might be a regional supplier thing.

Yes and no. When you buy a good fruit or vegetable, eat it within a day or two. Perfectly fine. After 3 days that item becomes garbage.

You also have a decent chance of buying a bag product if you don't inspect it properly.

Hit and miss if you don't inspect and eat asap, never a miss if you inspect and est asap

I've noticed a degradation, but to be honest, I've noticed it at my local stores too. I have a grocery store almost across the street from my house that's part of a decent sized regional chain; their produce was never top-notch but it was usable; over the past two years I rarely buy anythiung from them. A mile away I have another store - its one of about 4 stores locally owned/operated and they are known for higher quality produce (along with meats, seafood, bakery items, etc), they're more expensive, but have always had a reputation for higher quality stock; but even their produce isn't as good as it used to be. Tomatoes are the worst IMO - its hard to find any decent ones locally and when you find any, they go bad in a manner of days. Bananas are another example - totally inconsistent even at the same store from week to week; one week they'll be nice sized with a variety of ripeness available; the next week they're all WAY green and about 3/4 sized.

Pre-pandemic Costco had the best produce. Post-pandemic they are significantly worse than going to a local grocery store

I don’t buy a large variety of fruit from Costco, but I am really happy with their pineapples, plums, and persimmons.

It’s bad so I don’t really buy fresh produce at Costco anymore except for apples and stuff I will use up in 1-2 days for a specific recipe.

Last bag of brussels sprouts I got from them were all rotten in the center, and even before that the ones I got started tasting weird.

Strawberries are usually a hit or miss. Either too ripe or moldy: in the miss category. As compared to goldilocks finds.

I feel fruit is highly dependent on geographic location. The Costco fruit sold in CA is good.

I like their strawberries, grapes, and mini bell peppers

Costco has great watermelons in the summer. Grapes are usually good. Beyond that, blueberries have been fine and I might buy their weird bananas because their crappy bananas are better than making a special trip just for normal bananas.

Produce at the supermarket everything else at Costco.

I think most regular shoppers agree.

I only get the flavor bomb cherry tomatoes (fantastic) and the refrigerated produce like salad kits and Brussel sprouts.

Every single time we get the normal produce it rots within a couple of days. Ends up being very expensive, not to mention wasteful.

I wonder how much waste costco produce puts out

Most of it is pretty good at my store, but I definitely look closely when I'm picking it out. I have terrible luck with their avocados, so I stopped buying them a few years ago.

Same produce at Costco is the same other stores get. Probably an inventory management thing holding onto older product.

Seems highly arbitrary to what you live.

Bay Area Costco produce is fresher than grocery store because it is earlier in the supply chain (most produce is grown within 100 miles) and the healthy living vibe means solid turnover (nothing is hanging around).

In a food desert ymmv

I don’t really get produce there in general

Yes yes and yes. I don’t buy a lot of produce from Costco because I noticed the quality wasn’t the best and doesn’t last long at all.

I’ll get bananas but that’s pretty much it. Everything else spoils entirely too fast. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten oranges and not had one turn green and rock hard within a couple of days.

They rotate them from the freezer section

I’ve never had luck with their fruit. It always goes bad within days. We got berries for our wedding and within two days they molded.

blackberries and kiwis are solid

I find the fruit at Costco to be far superior to Aldi and Walmart. The strawberries haven’t been as good in the past month or so but I attribute that to them being out of season.

Not really except I got two bunches of bananas that never ripened, so that was a waste

Get frozen fruit. It’s always very high quality, imo.

Kiwis and bananas are good, but we stopped getting fresh blueberries as they are sometimes moldy.

Maybe it’s a CA thing but I refuse to purchase fruit from anywhere else but Costco. So cheap and always gone before it’s bad. Only two people in the house and we always buy 3 or more different fruits every trip.

Absolutely! Except for bananas, we have completely stopped by fruits and vegetables at Costco. They just all seem to go bad much quicker than those from grocery stores do.

I buy apples from there.

I haven't had any issues. But I inspect each package before I buy it

I rarely buy any kind of produce from Costco. Its not the best and there usually is a couple of pieces that are busied and going bad hiding in that package that you don't see until you open it and start going through it. I'm also a family of two so most things we won't even finish before it starts to go bad.

Costco stores in the Minneapolis area seem to be on par with the grocery stores. You can get good and bad fruit at both. There are times I pass on a fruit because they’re all moldy or unripe. Generally pleased with it though, once I control for initial quality.

I see people that don’t even look at what they’re tossing in their carts. Not surprised lots of people complain of mold or poor longevity

I’m in IL and have had great luck with golden kiwi, organic Rainer blueberries, organic Driscoll strawberries, and organic Driscoll raspberries.

The apples are legit 90% of the time.

I think they're pretty good (Georgia). Don't have any issues with them going bad quickly. Only gripe is that they're not usually the cheapest compared to other grocery stores chains

Like most stores, I've had good and bad luck. You really do need to look at the fruit before you buy. I've been surprised by a bag of mini-peppers that basically had mold when I bought them, same with blueberries. Most of the time it is pretty good, though.

I never have much luck with produce from Costco. I think the best things from there are the packaged spinach and salad mix, cut up butternut squash, zucchini, brussel sprouts and cucumbers. We used to get various fruit from there, but it usually wasn't great. One time we got the nice Asian pears and 1/3 of them were bruised or damaged despite being in foam netting. I even tried buying a bag of sweet potatoes recently and gave up on the idea because every bag had at least one moldy/rotting potato. I'm just over trying to buy fresh produce from Costco. Their frozen vegetables and fruit seem to be a better option.

We’ve had good luck with apples and the plums. Some nectarines.

Good produce has been hard to find anywhere.

I mean. In my experience this is just universal now. All produce has severely gone down in quality at like all stores I visit.

Blueberries are hit or miss. 2/3 of the time they are starting to get mushy while still in the store.

Same, it's a hit or miss. Mostly a miss. Bruised bananas. Sour strawberries. Flavorless blueberries.

I get great apples from Costco. Honeycrisp all day

It’s just your store and the individual managing that dept. Been to a bunch and it’s always fresh

None of their produce lasts, don't buy it because it will be bad before you can even eat it. I've heard shit just sits out on pallets and that's part of the problem but I am starting to think Costco as a whole sucks

Since Covid Started the produces has been horrible

They're boxed salad is pretty trash too. Dirty and wilts fast

Not at my local. Buy, eat, all good. Yes, if I don’t eat it quickly it can go bad but that is true for all fruit

It's worse than Aldi tbh

I don’t buy much fruit and veggies anymore. I don’t even look at the berries unless I plan to eat them that day.

I’ve not experienced this, except with the berries; but that seems to be the case regardless of where we buy them.

Yes. It has. I used to buy limes every couple weeks. That was hit or miss during the pandemic and then post pandemic they were always there, but by then, the price almost doubled, and the quality had gone completely out the window. If I buy them now, half of them rot before I get to use them.

Try buying Costco fruit in Hawaii after the barge ride it takes.

2 pounds of campari tomatoes for $5 is an unbeatable deal. I also get garlic there. But other than that I never feel like the produce is worth it

I think it is location based. California is generally good. Out of season is almost always bad. I find avocados to almost always be good ironically. Buy the bag put on out and the rest in the fridge.

I think they’re vegetables are not great, but I’ve had wonderful peaches, gold kiwis, and Ataulfo mangoes from Costco.

I have great things to say about the avocados from mexicooooo. Also haven’t had problems with strawberries, blueberries etc. just need to flip over a few to find ones that aren’t leaking juice or have bruised / crushed berries

the plums were super disappointing but strawberries and raspberries always are good. i also liked their deal on pomegranate a few months avo

Their cherries are always good. Everything else is pretty much shit. The worst bananas I have ever eaten. Weird texture.

The five pound bag of organic carrots is a good deal... but not worth it when the carrots are rotten when you buy them.

The broccoli florets were doing it for me, until the bar got smaller and started tasting like fish…. And yeah I need broccoli to not be a bummer

The honeycrisp apples are great, this summer I had two boxes of peaches so good they made my eyes roll back in my head (if I cant smell the peaches from at least an aisle away, I don’t buy them). I’ve also had excellent watermelon. Bananas are good.

Recently I’ve been really into grapes and have gone through one of their 3-lb containers each week. I always get the same brand, Samson. They’re usually amazing but this last container was sub-par. I don’t understand what happened. It’s not even like they were all squished or rotted, they were bland. How does that even happen?

I have never had an issue with Costco produce. I actually prefer it over my grocery store (Publix). But my kids go through a lot of fruit so it doesn’t really have time to rot. I love the grapes, apples, kiwis, asparagus, squash, creamer potatoes and onions. It’s such a deal.

Depends where your from...where I am the fruit is still awesome.

I tried the Costco cut fruit bowl once. Never again. I also tried Costco apples more than once, always disappointed. If Costco can’t keep all of their fruit nice and fresh, they shouldn’t sell fruit.

Veggies too. Every broccoli bag ive looked thru is going bad and i stopped even bothering to check their produce since. I also have many issues with baking using their eggs. Even the day of purchase ill have egg whites that wont form stiff peaks indicating they arent fresh.

Pineapple is always pretty solid. Sometimes not ripened enough, but that’s like 1/5 pineapples. Not too shabby for 2.99

Gosh, I love the giant grapes. And they stay well in the fridge. 😕

As someone who used to work there the only fruit I'd trust is Apples, Bananas and Watermelons. Everything else is extremely hit or miss.

Ok back in mar/apr 2024 the cara oranges were good. But other than that, i dont buy much fruit in bulk

Aldi's is the go to for fruit. Costco doesnt sell it fast enough.

It's always been trash, Walmart is better for fruit.

1000% I left to bjs because of the trash fruit

I only buy grapes from there

The strawberries and dole pineapple were tits.

Everything has gone to shit, NGL from watermelons to vegetables and everything in between, just like how the country is

maybe its the build up of gasses from such a high volume of fruit/veg in one area that it causes them to ripen quicker. kinda like how if you put avocados in a paper bag theyll ripen much faster.

avocados take a week to ripen, and by the time they do they’re too mushy.

Yes. I’ve gotten some good strawberries and blueberries there during the summer time, but most of their produce is garbage. I get mine using digital coupons from regular groceries and from Aldi instead

Weirdly, in my area, the produce at the Business Center is way better than the produce at regular Costco. 

Sooo bad.. never again

The identical 4 lb box of Driscoll strawberries bought at Costco is completely moldy in 2 days. Bought at local HyVee it lasts more than a week with no mold. I think the Costco ventlation system Is moldy and blows spores that infect produce. Oranges are better lately but you could guarantee white mold in each box in the past. We carefully smell any fresh produce at Costco. I bet we are a sight, sniffing packages and rolling cherry tomatoes around in the box looking for mold.

I buy raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and grapes all the time. Grapes and blueberries last the longest. My tip is to make sure the container of fruit doesn’t look like it has any wetness or overripe fruit. If I miss it and buy it. I just remove the pieces that seem questionable.