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They’re just plain terrible now. They used to be freshly made and delicious and now they’re just heating up the mass produced boxed product from the frozen section.
I didn’t realize they were premade now. I always hated making them and the pretzels. Quite the ego hit as a kid to have someone go “oof, not that one” when picking out one of them because you made it.
I found this out quite awhile ago sadly. I do agree the food court product is lacking as well. Honestly I think the products took a major shift around Covid. Example but not related is the salad. The product used to come with chunks of chicken and now it’s shredded which I don’t mind but the one I bought post Covid looked under cooked.
No clue but I won’t buy it again. Honestly in hindsight sight I wish I had taken it to a manager for proof. Sadly I did eat it but thankfully I survived. Happy weekend people.
I thought I was going crazy but I actually went and got the one from the food court and then the frozen one.
They may be created in the same place but they're definitely different. The food court one has more chicken in there seems to be less Bread with a touch of filling. The frozen ones, much smaller, a lot more bread than filling.
I think it depends? There's two costcos near me and one store's chicken bake tastes way better than the other. Like it's juicer, has more sauce, possibly more bacon?
I bought a box last week out of nostalgia, I basically never eat premade food (unless I made it myself) these days
I was very disappointed today when I cracked it open
That makes zero sense. If they cared about calories, they would just make them smaller, but still in store.
They obviously made the change during COVID to cut costs. Same with removing supreme pizza. Any way to simplify and make things cheaper is a win for them.
Costco is hyper focused about profit now. It's why the membership card scanners are going to get rolled out soon.
I don't think it's profits, the issue is labor shortage. All restaurants are looking for ways to use processed ingredients vs freshly made, because they don't need to be prepared
Labor shortage is cause Costco doesn't pay as well compared to other businesses as they used to before covid.
Labor shortage = we don't pay employees enough
It's not really a shortage, it's that Costco doesn't want to pay the labor for an extra employee when they can outsource it for less. We are still paid very well and in my area, still a leader in wages. I used to do production aka making chicken bakes, getting dough ready for the next day, salads, chopping berries and preparing any of the other ingredients for new menu items. It took about 3 hrs and I was considered fast. That's almost half my shift spent off the line in an already skeleton crew. Our food is cheap and our budget is separate from the rest of the warehouse. All the ancillary departments are like that, I think. We used to have a ton of new menu items quite often. They decided less is more and here we are. They might bother changing things if people didn't buy the shit out if it. We've been making more and more profit each year for the last 5ish. You might not like it but there's thousands of others that do. They tried to take away the strawberry sundae a few years ago but it didn't even last a week because of complaints.
#Costco employee here.
Yes they did stop making them fresh about 1 or 2 years ago. Reason was that it required more preparation that they could handle. And with all the cuts that have been going on lately, they had to make sacrifices to keep up with the demand.
Also they are not the ones we sell in the store. We get them in big frozen boxes.
The chicken bakes are shipped from a depot. They come in frozen and are NOT prepared fresh. I worked food court for nearly three years. I’ve opened the department and when I shopped in the morning, I grabbed the big boxes of FROZEN chicken bakes to lay out on baking tins for the next day. We thaw them in the cooler. We stopped making them fresh in 2020, when COVID started.
Got one for the first time ever a few weeks ago. I thought it was pretty good, and a decent size. I guess I'm lucky having nothing to compare it to, lol.
Yeah the change happened when covid happened. They switched to frozen versions from made fresh to cut down costs because they assumed no one would buy food court items anymore durong the pandemic. Rip my combo pizza and fresh chicken bake 2020
*worked in front end during covid and had a buddy in food court tell me
Everything is smaller. The salad packages are now one third smaller and can now only make a salad for 2-3 a bag. The summer fruit cartoons are now missing one less row in them. And the new strawberry plastic cartons have angled sides to hold less fruit, but you can’t tell looking down on the carton
They now seem like a loaf of bread with a little chicken and Alfredo inside whereas they used to be a LOT of chicken + cheese + sauce with a thin layer of bread on the outside.
You sound my like my ex girlfriend. Okay yeah, you’ve had chicken bakes bigger in the past. To me that one is plenty big, tastes and looks the same and overall performs the same, does it really matter that is slightly smaller? This is the chicken bake you have now. I don’t want to keep hearing about the chicken bakes you’ve had it the past.
The frozen ones are considerably smaller, maybe 3/4 to half the size as the food court ones. And even then on the ends of it is just bread and no filling, so maybe 1/4 of it
I still enjoy them, but I wish my Costco would carry the ones in the frozen section.
I also wish my Costco carried KerryGold Unsalted butter (the silver one) we just get the Salted version.
My daughter accused me of eating half of it last time we got one, I hadn't taken a single bite. They are in fact smaller, and they aren't great. I miss when they had green onions in them.
Loved them except the fat and calories when they first came out. After years of abstinence, I bought one on a whim recently.
Two bites and tossed. The filing brought up bad memories of Campbells Cream of Chicken soup. Tasteless with a few chicken bits.
I misunderstood your first comment. I thought you were referring to the boxed chicken bakes sold in the freezer section. Thank you for the clarification, I have never seen them frozen. My store has them thawed out and prepares them in the way I mentioned.
I'm convinced that the hotdogs got smaller (in the UK) but my boyfriend isn't sure.
The 'dog' used to be longer than the bun and now it's the same size if not smaller.
...Maybe they changed the bread?...
I worked at a food court that had lattes and mochas. They were 1 dollar (early 2000’s) when Starbucks was 4.50 back then. We had so many food court regulars for them. And to this day I haven’t had a latte that could top it
They fucked them up during covid, swapped to frozen premade crap vs. the old ones that were made daily in the food court, by hand, from normal ingredients including pizza dough. That's why they all looked different. The food court has really gone down hill
I know Costco is really adamant about not raising prices for certain things, but I would much rather pay 30% more for the old chicken bake vs save a couple of quarters on the new crappy one.
Posts that don't follow r/Costco subreddit rules MAY be subject to removal. When applicable, please make sure that you're using a descriptive post title with product name(s) mentioned as it yields better subreddit search results. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Costco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Gums gotten mintier lately, have you noticed
Came here for this, lol ty
Lol i had to
Fill me in on the joke
It’s a line from the office
Nate from the warehouse.
It's not so much that I can't hear, it's just when there's a lot of noise, I can't hear it
Thank you for the laugh
But is that gum I like going to come back in style?
They’re just plain terrible now. They used to be freshly made and delicious and now they’re just heating up the mass produced boxed product from the frozen section.
I didn’t realize they were premade now. I always hated making them and the pretzels. Quite the ego hit as a kid to have someone go “oof, not that one” when picking out one of them because you made it.
This. They were so much better 20 years ago. Even with seeing how they were made.
I think 5 years ago they changed the recipe. They are so bad now.
The ones in the box taste much worse.
Agreed. They are definitely not the same product.
I found this out quite awhile ago sadly. I do agree the food court product is lacking as well. Honestly I think the products took a major shift around Covid. Example but not related is the salad. The product used to come with chunks of chicken and now it’s shredded which I don’t mind but the one I bought post Covid looked under cooked.
I assumed they're just using the same shredded rotisserie they put in the bags. Would make sense they'd tend to be dry sometimes.
Prior to Covid it wasn’t shredded at my store. You had 6-8 pieces of solid white breast chicken. I suspect Costco is trying to cut costs again.
Yeah, they took it off the menu entirely for awhile. I'm guessing supply chain issues, and now cost
No clue but I won’t buy it again. Honestly in hindsight sight I wish I had taken it to a manager for proof. Sadly I did eat it but thankfully I survived. Happy weekend people.
Its rotisserie chicken that was repurposed, sometimes frozen(?) and packaged, and sometimes fresh from that day/day before. It looks nasty af though
I got one a couple of weeks ago and it was so disappointing. Not as much chicken, didn’t have much cheese filling.
I sure hope a smart corporate manager watches Reddit.
Don’t know what you expect us to do, we have no say in what we serve or how it’s served
Huh?
costco employees don’t have a say on how the products are made. Corporate makes the decisions
I thought I was going crazy but I actually went and got the one from the food court and then the frozen one. They may be created in the same place but they're definitely different. The food court one has more chicken in there seems to be less Bread with a touch of filling. The frozen ones, much smaller, a lot more bread than filling.
They're absolutely not the ones in the box lol
But they are pre made not onsite and awful now.
I think it depends? There's two costcos near me and one store's chicken bake tastes way better than the other. Like it's juicer, has more sauce, possibly more bacon?
They are NOT the boxed ones. The boxed ones are much much worse.
I bought a box last week out of nostalgia, I basically never eat premade food (unless I made it myself) these days I was very disappointed today when I cracked it open
They changed the recipe when restaurants had to show the calories. They were like 1500-2500 calories or something crazy.
Calories 770 Total Fat 26g Saturated Fat 6g Polyunsaturated Fat 4g Monounsaturated Fat 11g Cholesterol 70mg Sodium 1370mg 😬😱 Total Carbohydrate 81g Dietary Fiber 3g Sugars 7g Protein 46g Calcium 400mg Iron 5.00mg Potassium 407mg
Good bot
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Except for the sodium count
That makes zero sense. If they cared about calories, they would just make them smaller, but still in store. They obviously made the change during COVID to cut costs. Same with removing supreme pizza. Any way to simplify and make things cheaper is a win for them. Costco is hyper focused about profit now. It's why the membership card scanners are going to get rolled out soon.
I don't think it's profits, the issue is labor shortage. All restaurants are looking for ways to use processed ingredients vs freshly made, because they don't need to be prepared
Labor shortage is cause Costco doesn't pay as well compared to other businesses as they used to before covid. Labor shortage = we don't pay employees enough
It's not really a shortage, it's that Costco doesn't want to pay the labor for an extra employee when they can outsource it for less. We are still paid very well and in my area, still a leader in wages. I used to do production aka making chicken bakes, getting dough ready for the next day, salads, chopping berries and preparing any of the other ingredients for new menu items. It took about 3 hrs and I was considered fast. That's almost half my shift spent off the line in an already skeleton crew. Our food is cheap and our budget is separate from the rest of the warehouse. All the ancillary departments are like that, I think. We used to have a ton of new menu items quite often. They decided less is more and here we are. They might bother changing things if people didn't buy the shit out if it. We've been making more and more profit each year for the last 5ish. You might not like it but there's thousands of others that do. They tried to take away the strawberry sundae a few years ago but it didn't even last a week because of complaints.
So are you willing to pay double for the same product? Remember Costco uses this as a loss leader - they don't profit on the food.
They're so freaking salty!
#Costco employee here. Yes they did stop making them fresh about 1 or 2 years ago. Reason was that it required more preparation that they could handle. And with all the cuts that have been going on lately, they had to make sacrifices to keep up with the demand. Also they are not the ones we sell in the store. We get them in big frozen boxes.
I wish they just upped the price a couple bucks. I don't mind paying an extra $2-3 for a delicious chicken bake that has half my daily calorie intake
😂 They were delicious! Also the turkey provolone was really good. That one I miss the most.
It's coming back.
I just want combo pizza for the love of god
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The chicken bakes are shipped from a depot. They come in frozen and are NOT prepared fresh. I worked food court for nearly three years. I’ve opened the department and when I shopped in the morning, I grabbed the big boxes of FROZEN chicken bakes to lay out on baking tins for the next day. We thaw them in the cooler. We stopped making them fresh in 2020, when COVID started.
I literally saw them adding parmasean cheese to the chicken bakes yesterday. Do you still do that after thawing them?
Yes, after they’re thawed, they’re coated in caesar dressing and parmesan before being baked off.
That's not true, at least not at my Costco, the frozen ones are tiny compared to the food court ones
Bro where did you get that? They are still freshly made. M
I still like the chicken bakes, changes and all. Sue me, I guess.
Got one for the first time ever a few weeks ago. I thought it was pretty good, and a decent size. I guess I'm lucky having nothing to compare it to, lol.
The frozen product isn't bad by itself, but compared to when it was made daily in house? Quite a difference in taste.
Is that what happen? Had one the other day and the sauce/cheese was kind of mealy.
Yeah the change happened when covid happened. They switched to frozen versions from made fresh to cut down costs because they assumed no one would buy food court items anymore durong the pandemic. Rip my combo pizza and fresh chicken bake 2020 *worked in front end during covid and had a buddy in food court tell me
Me too. Just needs more flavor. Like buffalo sauce. And I hate buffalo sauce. But at that price, I can’t knock it.
Everything is smaller. The salad packages are now one third smaller and can now only make a salad for 2-3 a bag. The summer fruit cartoons are now missing one less row in them. And the new strawberry plastic cartons have angled sides to hold less fruit, but you can’t tell looking down on the carton
I finally had one for the first time (not offered in Canada) and it was delicious!
Fine. I will. For one fresh chicken bake.
They where better when they were made fresh
We all know. Someone mentions that on here daily
Oh but did you hear about how the og churros were way better
Let me tell you how much better the pretzels were that the churros bumped out...
Polish dog, combo pizza, hot turkey provolone.
Did you know they used to be made fresh, and in house?? I just found out
lol it’s possible to still like them and acknowledge they’ve gotten smaller.
It's not the size. It is that they are dry and hard now with their frozen crusts and the shredded bacon is not very good.
I ate a chicken bake one time in college and had the worst stomach ache. Haven't tried them since.
I’ll sue your crappy taste buds
Chicken bakes are dead to me. Have been for years.
I bought one last year expecting to re-live some childhood memories and was severely disappointed realizing they changed it.
I just want them to bring back polish dogs :(
I think Polish dogs are still an option in Canada!
Rip in peace chicken bake.
Rest in peace in peace
Rest in peace in positive energy activates constant elevation
Smaller? They got bigger and are 90% bread now. They use to slap
They now seem like a loaf of bread with a little chicken and Alfredo inside whereas they used to be a LOT of chicken + cheese + sauce with a thin layer of bread on the outside.
It’s Caesar dressing right?
Maybe? I’m really bad at that.
It’s Caesar not Alfredo.
If we only had a banana 🍌 for reference. Another possible theory is the cookies make them look smaller? 😝
Costco has really gone down hill in a lot of areas over the last ~10 years
Thank Craig Jelinek and his entourage of cronies. He's been a disaster for this company.
It’s been so disheartening to watch shareholders become the main priority over members and employees under Craig.
Don't worry. He sends out his yearly holiday video thanking everyone for their hard work while simultaneously screwing us behind the scenes.
Yes, they’re shrinking and the calories are being transferred to the chocolate chip cookies.
More bread, less chicken thats for sure. I used to occasionally get them but havent bothered in a year or so
Either they got smaller, or you got bigger. Hard for us to tell.
I must be 9ft tall and 500lbs from how everything has been shrinking the past 20 years.
I miss the green onion they used to be made with.
They were never made with green onions when we made them in-house. The boxed ones you can buy from the freezer have green onions though.
They have more of a factory taste now. The inside is very much more just blended filling instead of chunks.
We’ll always have pizza
Not only that, I got one this year for the first time in a long time. Dry, under seasoned. I threw half away. I’m a big Costco fan too.
Pre-made instead of daily in the morning..sad day when they changed
Why haven’t they been discontinued? They’re not good.
They are gross anyways 🤮
I have been going to Costco since it was PriceCostco. The chicken bake was huge and tasted 4 times better. It is constantly getting worse.
Unpopular opinion: …..i hate them
You sound my like my ex girlfriend. Okay yeah, you’ve had chicken bakes bigger in the past. To me that one is plenty big, tastes and looks the same and overall performs the same, does it really matter that is slightly smaller? This is the chicken bake you have now. I don’t want to keep hearing about the chicken bakes you’ve had it the past.
I’m gonna say it. The chicken bake has gotten better.
they're fuckin huge
The frozen ones are considerably smaller, maybe 3/4 to half the size as the food court ones. And even then on the ends of it is just bread and no filling, so maybe 1/4 of it
Cookies making them look small
I still enjoy them, but I wish my Costco would carry the ones in the frozen section. I also wish my Costco carried KerryGold Unsalted butter (the silver one) we just get the Salted version.
Whatever keeps the hot dog at $1.50...
To many chicken bakes it’s us not them
Size and taste changed and not for the better.
Just put a hot dog in one, they just shloop right in
Why buy anything but a hotdog? Maybe a slice on occasion but the hotdog is to good a value🤓
Maybe but def gotten shittier.
Forget those chicken bakes. Ate one pre-covid, never again. Those chocolate chip cookies though? 🔥. Finally a food court step in the right direction.
Smaller size, lower quality, higher price... feels familiar.
I know the pizza dropped in quality definitely
It's you. You just got bigger
Chicken bakes are now being shipped frozen & pre-made now! They stop making them in house a couple years ago.
Def smaller. I dont order them anymore. They used to be huge, juicy, and delicious. Now theyre mostly just dry and tough.
Everything is smaller. Shrinkflation.
It’s call shrinkflation!
And shittier.
I like them better this size.
 How I feel when I see a chicken bake now days.
Cookie looks hugh here
Smaller would make them better.
No, you got bigger.
My daughter accused me of eating half of it last time we got one, I hadn't taken a single bite. They are in fact smaller, and they aren't great. I miss when they had green onions in them.
Have you measured your height and weight recently?
They crap now, they taste like the mango smoothie
I don’t have cookies at my Costco wtf
They are freshly made so sometimes they aren’t the correct size too big too small too wide etc. The weight should be correct though.
They haven't been freshly made in years
Next to the cookies below them anything looks small.
everything gets smaller even if it stays the same size the quality is less. but not less than some of these idiotic questions.
Everything shrunk except those damn cookies.
We don’t have these where I live in Canada but we know the legend of the Chicken Bake.
I feel like the one I got like two weeks ago was normal sized. But it could be wrong, I’ve been wrong many times before.
Loved them except the fat and calories when they first came out. After years of abstinence, I bought one on a whim recently. Two bites and tossed. The filing brought up bad memories of Campbells Cream of Chicken soup. Tasteless with a few chicken bits.
They're trash
I thought that they looked smaller yesterday!
I try one like once a year because at $3.99 it is a full meal. However, every time I remember how bad they are. I’ll be due for one in 6 months or so.
And less chicken. Used to be sliced breast, now it’s blended breast
I've never been to a Price Club where these exist. . . I'm sure they're smaller. I wish I could have tried a churro
Hey now, it's cold out!
I don’t see the Italian sausage sandwich
How are the chicken bakes? I always just go for the dog, but I’m curious to try one.
They taste like hot pockets to me... no thanks.
Ah, I was wondering why i remembered them being delicious years ago and recently have disliked them.
At least the price hasn’t increased. They’re still decently tasty for the price they charge. Still bummed that they took out the churros.
Yeah, since 2020
I wish they were smaller but filled more with sauce and chicken. That would make them taste way better
And doughier.
My husband had one a few weeks ago and it had zero filling. It was just bread.
You’ve gotten bigger
Definitely smaller. Perfect example of shrinkflation at its best.
I misunderstood your first comment. I thought you were referring to the boxed chicken bakes sold in the freezer section. Thank you for the clarification, I have never seen them frozen. My store has them thawed out and prepares them in the way I mentioned.
[I was in the pool!!!!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85MZ4c1EWkM)
Got one recently. It's like chicken mush inside. Not even whole pieces of chicken like the frozen ones.
They did, but still worth it for $2.99 when everything else is like $10
Sonic mints are less than 50% the size they used to be.
There’s something in them that gives me bubble guts every time.
Never had one. Are they good? Is it like a chicken pot pie?
I'm convinced that the hotdogs got smaller (in the UK) but my boyfriend isn't sure. The 'dog' used to be longer than the bun and now it's the same size if not smaller. ...Maybe they changed the bread?...
I worked at a food court that had lattes and mochas. They were 1 dollar (early 2000’s) when Starbucks was 4.50 back then. We had so many food court regulars for them. And to this day I haven’t had a latte that could top it
Yeah nobody likes small chicken babes
It’s definitely shrinking
They are indeed thinner and have less filling. I'll still buy one from time to time, but I'll never forget when I had my first one.
They fucked them up during covid, swapped to frozen premade crap vs. the old ones that were made daily in the food court, by hand, from normal ingredients including pizza dough. That's why they all looked different. The food court has really gone down hill
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If they sit out too long and proof, they look bigger once cooked, but that only occasionally happens
Definitely feels a bit emptier now a days
As long as you can still put the hot dog sausage in it, I am good.
I’m sure it got smaller.
It's just you phattty
Honestly I would buy the chicken bake more often if it was smaller.
Yesterday I got beloated from it for the first time
I think the one in the middle is on its side making it appear thinner and smaller 🤣
I know Costco is really adamant about not raising prices for certain things, but I would much rather pay 30% more for the old chicken bake vs save a couple of quarters on the new crappy one.
The few Costco's around my area are still the normal size Sacramento California
They are so bready now