The Costco Food Price Cuts That Customers Say Are Nearly Impossible To Find

Shopping at Costco can be a great way to guarantee a bargain, especially if you're stocking up ahead of a busy season or preparing for a party. From charcuterie board ingredients to frozen party staples, it seems that most members have their tried-and-true list of favorite Costco products, and one particularly popular section is the warehouse club's butcher.

But avid shoppers have started to take note of something interesting. Costco customers discussed the retailer's approach to marking down their meat products on Reddit, and many have noticed that the discounted prices are only offered around the holidays.

We're no strangers to Costco's approach to pricing its meat, so our interest was piqued. We set out to learn whether these discoveries are purely anecdotal or if there's something to the idea that Costco has strict windows for when and how they manage the sale prices on any excess meat.

As one commenter on Reddit pointed out, the trickiest part of figuring out when and how to score lower-priced meat from Costco stems from the fact that they don't advertise these particular sales. "They're never really advertised anywhere, so you'll only see them if you're in the store," says one user on the r/Costco forum, while other users note they've never seen any markdowns on meat in their local store. 

While it does seem to make sense that Costco would focus most of its meat markdown efforts around the holidays when there may be an excess on hand, this theory does not seem to ring true at every Costco — or even across every kind of meat. 

As the YouTuber Butcher Wizard shares in his video on saving money when buying meat at Costco, he often finds great deals in the pork section, and it's not limited to a certain time of year. And in a post on Instagram from a claimed former Costco employee, sophie.aya324, says markdowns don't happen at a certain time of year — they happen at a certain time of day. "Late evening / slower hours sometimes have better clearance packs," she says in her caption. This also seems to be confirmed by a member of the GYM RATS Facebook group. "If you hit up Costco in the last hour before closing, they usually have nice markdowns on meats," says the user.

However, it's worth noting that Costco corporate pricing changes introduce more unpredictability. Costco notes on its website that individual warehouse prices may vary, reinforcing how shoppers may see different markdown patterns depending on location and timing.