This Is The Worst Part Of The New Costco Rotisserie Chicken Lawsuit, According To Some Shoppers

Rotisserie chickens are, hands down, one of the most popular items sold at Costco. A new lawsuit is threatening the reliability of that popularity, at least according to some fans online. The fear is that if the lawsuit goes ahead and Costco is forced to make changes, the chickens will go up in price and customers will lose out on one of the store's biggest draws.

Costco sells over 100 million of these $4.99 chickens every year, a fact which is kind of self-explanatory. You can't buy an uncooked chicken for that price, let alone a tasty, rotisserie one that's ready to eat. Costco sells these as a loss leader to get customers in the door, but they are advertised as being free from certain additives.

A class action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, alleges that Costco's claim that its chickens are made without preservatives is false and misleading. Both sodium phosphate and carrageenan are listed in the ingredients, and these are preservatives, according to the suit. The lawsuit claims that by saying the chickens are made without preservatives when they actually contain them, Costco has defrauded customers of hundreds of millions of dollars. The suit seeks damages as well as changes to Costco's labeling practices.

This is not the first Costco rotisserie red flag that has come up, but it's the first to go to court. The lawsuit claims that the plaintiffs would never have bought the chicken had they known it contained preservatives. Chicken fans on Reddit are less concerned about whether or not there are preservatives in the chicken and more concerned about what this means for the future. At least they're not worried about the rotisserie chicken bag anymore.

"Win or lose, the rest of us consumers will end up paying more while greedy lawyers and their 'clients' get rich," said one Redditor in response to the news. Another replied, "This lawsuit better not mess up my chicken value!"

It's hard to say how the suit will play out. Carrageenan is used as a stabilizer or thickener, which could help maintain the chicken's texture and flavor, but it is not typically considered a preservative, so the claim is unusual. Likewise, sodium phosphate is part of an injected salt solution that aids in keeping the chicken moist and tender. It's not technically a preservative, either. That said, it would indirectly help the chicken stay fresh longer. Both additives are widely used in many foods. The lawsuit may hinge on how broadly a court is willing to define the term "preservative."

On Reddit, there is a lot of debate about whether Costco was misleading people, whether customers should read labels more carefully, and whether the issue matters at all. It's clear that many shoppers have an opinion. Perhaps the overall sentiment was best summed up in this single comment from one concerned Redditor: "Ruin that chicken and they will destroy a national treasure."