A Florida chef is going viral after accusing Costco of selling her spoiled meat, despite the expiration date claiming it was fresh.
Katie Cox (@chefkatiecox) said she bought six racks of lamb ahead of Mother’s Day weekend, assuming the store’s packaging could be trusted. But once she got home, she and her husband quickly realized the lamb had already gone bad.
“If you shop at Costco, you need to watch this video,” she warned viewers.
Her TikTok exposé has racked up over 191,000 views as of Monday and sparked a broader conversation about whether Costco is misleading other customers, too.
Costco sells rotten meat
In her video, Cox showed viewers the lamb she bought from Costco. While the outward label suggested the meat was good, Cox said it “smelled awful” when she opened it. And she noted, again, that she found this strange because the expiration date, at least according to the package, suggested the meat hadn’t expired.
That’s when Cox said she noticed something strange.
“There’s a second label under the label,” she noted. And that original had a different “sell by” date on it—one that had passed nearly a week ago.
In a follow-up video, she stated that three of the six racks she purchased were spoiled—and that when she returned to the store to exchange them, she found the same double-label trick on the shelves at least 10 more.
“I’ve never had a problem with their lamb racks before,” Cox said. “But you cannot re-label items to extend the shelf life.” She added that in a corporate kitchen, that kind of move would get someone fired.
While she didn’t report the issue to the health department, she said she wanted to “bring awareness” to what she saw—and put Costco on notice.
“Hey, Costco,” she asked in the video, “isn’t this illegal?”
Is it illegal to relabel expired food?
So, is what Costco did actually illegal? That’s murky.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service regulates meat, poultry, and certain egg products. According to the agency’s own guidelines, stores must make sure that any date they slap on a product is “truthful [and] not misleading.” But that’s not the same as saying they can’t change the label, especially when it comes to how and when a product was repackaged.
The USDA states that retailers can’t legally alter the original date printed by a manufacturer or a federally inspected facility. If meat is packaged and dated by the producer, that’s supposed to stay put. But if a retailer cuts and repackages the meat themselves and then adds a new date? That’s not federally prohibited.
So while double-sticking expired meat with a fresher date might be unethical—or downright gross—it’s not clearly illegal under federal law. The only hard rule is that it has to follow any relevant state or local regulations.
Bottom line: This might not get anyone locked up, but it definitely makes you think twice about trusting that sticker on the shrink-wrap.
@chefkatiecox @Costco Wholesale are you checking your Costco labels? #floridacostco #costcomislabeling #costco #costcolamb #costcofinds #costcobuys #costcoguide #costcohaul #costcolabel #costcoguys ♬ Oh No – Kreepa
Viewers question if Costco’s standards have dropped
In the comments under Cox’s video, many viewers couldn’t believe that even Costco—home of bulk bargains and customer loyalty—would stoop to selling spoiled meat.
“Excuse me Costco… this is Walmart behavior,” one commenter quipped.
“Report this to corporate! Not just the store,” another advised. “This isn’t Costco’s normal standard at all.”
“A BIG STORE like Costco doing shady business like that… what a shame,” a third TikToker said.
“Completely unsafe and unacceptable,” said a fourth user, who suggested they might not return to shop at Costco. “This is illegal, and you could sue if you were to get sick from eating this expired food. I expect higher quality standards from Costco. THIS IS NOT OKAY!”
Others, though, weren’t surprised. Many said they’ve had the same rancid experience with Costco’s meat before.
“I love Costco but this happened to me (smell) never thought about removing sticker,” one viewer shared. “Took them back.”
“GIRL I HAD THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN FEB!! They were supposed to expire in March – they already smelled foul and rotten,” another shared.
“I stopped buying the Costco meat bc it’s packaged so poorly [that] the chicken will have a hole in it all the time!” a third commenter said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Cox via TikTok comment and to Costco through its media request form.
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