The Astronomical Number Of Rotisserie Chickens Costco Sold In 2025
You may know that Costco rotisserie chickens have a two-hour shelf life, but are you actually aware just how utterly popular these golden, delicious birds happen to be? According to a report from a January 2026 annual shareholders' meeting, Costco sold a jaw-dropping 157.4 million rotisserie chickens worldwide in 2025. That's almost 300 chickens a minute! We were aware that Costco sold an outrageous number of food court hot dogs annually, but we didn't account for the popularity of the chickens, though they represent another signature item.
When one thinks about it, however, Costco's going through millions upon millions of rotisserie chickens isn't actually all that shocking. How many times have you been inside the warehouse around common mealtimes and seen a group of people hovering around the hot case like vultures, just waiting for fresh chickens to be stocked? Not only do these birds make an excellent dinner after a long shopping trip, but there are just so many uses for store-bought rotisserie chicken that we could understand buying one on every single visit. Soups, chicken salads, and easy pasta dishes are just a handful of the ideas that jump to mind, but there's no need to stop there.
Customers are making great use of Costco chickens, and so is the retailer
Rotisserie chicken meat will stand in for having to season and cook chicken in many recipes. Making chicken tacos or BBQ pulled chicken for sandwiches? Grab a chicken. Spring rolls, fajitas, chicken pot pie? You already know what we're going to say. When awards shows or sports championships are on our TV screens, rotisserie chicken is in our Buffalo chicken dip. Costco's rotisserie chickens are a convenience food that works as a foundational ingredient for your own cooking, an item that doesn't really have a parallel in many other grocery stores. When you realize how very useful these chickens are, having sold nine figures' worth of them is kind of logical.
Given that the $4.99 bird would cost closer to $10 if adjusted for inflation, the item is sold at a loss. That's surely part of why Costco itself puts its chickens to work, too. The ready-made food case offers a chicken salad made with rotisserie chicken, and social media users were all over the fact that the food court sells a chef salad starring cold pieces of repurposed rotisserie chicken. It's no secret that many grocery stores repurpose rotisserie chickens in grab-and-go food to prevent waste. Just like you might use the carcass of your chicken as the backbone of some great stock, so do stores like Costco try to ensure that perfectly good chickens see maximum utilization — all 157 million of them.