Are Sam's Club Bakery Items Made In-Store?

At bulk retailers like Sam's Club, the question of whether bakery items are made in-store naturally comes up, especially considering the retailer sells more and larger items compared to smaller grocery stores and local bakeshops. In short, while several of Sam's Club's quality bakery items are "fresh baked" in-store, the bulk retailer doesn't make everything from scratch on site. In the case of bakery items like Member's Mark All Butter Sandwich Croissants, for instance, dough is received frozen at stores and then baked in store. The intensive process to mix and shape the dough happens outside the store, followed by oven-baking in bakery departments. While this does lead to fresh baked taste, texture, and aromatics, the frozen dough comes from outside a Sam's Club bakery.

Many large grocery retailers prepare bulk bakery items at an outside manufacturing location prior to finishing the baking process, or baking them and retailing as ready-to-eat items. Similarly, the bakery department at Sam's Club involves hands-on preparation, but the extent of in-house preparation can vary depending on the baked item. Many breads are baked in-house daily. But the dough for croissants (and likely some packaged cookies) come pre-made and frozen. Custom cakes requiring decoration involve more preparation in-house, and could have more of a scratch-made feel. However, Sam's Clubs bakery items are not as "scratch-made" as your grandma's favorite chocolate chip cookie or chocolate cake recipe.

For bakery items made 100% in house, from cake batter and frosting to sourdough bread, you're better off going to a local bakery. Sam's Club's custom cake options could be better than buying a pre-packaged grocery store cake, but options can be rather limited compared to scratch-made bakeshops (in fact, this is one of the things customers would change about Sam's Club bakery). But to buy an ample amount of baked goods for a reasonable price, some of the best Sam's Club bakery desserts — like a tray of soft assorted cookies or Member's Mark pumpkin cheesecake — could be good options. Many shoppers rave about Sam's Club apple lattice pie, the southern dessert that 4,000 happy customers can't get enough of, which are baked in house by bakery employees each day. 

However, at the end of the day, some customers will tell you that the bakery's pies and other items are not as fresh as they could be — or as they were in the past. One Sam's Club customer commented on a Facebook post regarding concerns about the fresh-baked quality, writing, "The pies are sometimes still frozen when they're put out." All-in-all, Sam's Club bakeries feature some preparation in store, but not what most of us would consider to be "made from scratch."