It would be nice to know but as with a great many of the brands behind your favorite Costco Kirkland products, the provenance of the coffee is shrouded in mystery. Well, kind of. It can be said with certainty who used to roast the coffee for the membership-based, big box retailer. That would be another giant, Starbucks.
The coffee chain’s logo and name used to be featured plainly on Costco bags. But in late or early 2024, the logo was unceremoniously dropped from the packaging with no comment from either business. While that seems to imply that Starbucks is no longer the supplier, the lack of clarity from Costco makes it hard to know one way or the other.
While the coffee chain’s name and logo disappeared from the bags, no other company’s information was added in its place. It’s likely, given the change, that Starbucks’ contract expired and the two brands have parted ways — on this product, at least — but that is yet to be uncovered.
Starbucks still provides some coffee to Costco
Amazon
This isn’t a total cessation in business dealings between Costco and Starbucks which still supplies the store with French Roast coffee and K-Cups that bear its own branding. The store even carries Starbucks’ egg bites on its shelves. Costco, of course, also carries a range of other java. Those include various Kirkland Signature coffees of single origin, such as Guatemalan, Rwandan, Sumatran, and Costa Rican-derived roasts.
In addition to Starbucks’ products, other popular coffee brands like Peet’s, Dunkin’, and Tim Hortons provide Costco with K-Cups, ground, and whole bean varieties. But the lack of information when it comes to the Kirkland brand of coffee, has left those online to speculate. In a Reddit thread, a poster offered up that they had heard through the grapevine that Starbucks was the party who declined to renew the contract.
Regardless of whether that is true or not, other Redditors were celebrating the move as a possible sign of higher-quality coffee being sold under the Kirkland Signature banner. Comments generally zeroed in on a common complaint made about Starbucks coffee which is that the chain over-roasts its beans resulting in an acrid and bitter flavor that some find off-putting.
