One of Costco’s most prized deals is its $5 rotisserie chicken. But one customer was not happy to discover the condition of his chicken once he sliced it open.
Bryce Hammond (@brycehammond4) returned his rotisserie chicken to Costco after discovering it was incredibly bloody inside. He reveals photos of the chicken in a viral TikTok video.
An unappetizing Costco rotisserie chicken
“I’m so disgusted right now with Costco chicken,” he says in the clip. “I just came back from returning my rotisserie chicken. It was completely infected or has some type of disease. I’ve never seen a chicken this disgusting in my life. I’ve never seen something even close to that foul from any type of animal that I’ve bought anywhere else at any other store.”
Inside the chicken is dark red, with some even darker, bloody spots that look more like blood clots than a delicious meal.
“This was completely rotted, I barely sliced it open and it was all purple and bloody,” he wrote in the text overlay, showing an image of the chicken.
In the caption of the video, which has garnered over 364,000 views, Hammond warns other shoppers against the meat.
“Be careful with the chickens at Costco. I just got a super nasty surprise when I cut it open,” he wrote.
Hammond suggests the chicken had some sort of infection that led it to look so unappetizing. But is that really what’s going on here?
What happened to this Costco rotisserie chicken?
Pink or “bloody” chicken usually isn’t a problem.
As physicist and meat expert Dr. Greg Blonder told Epicurious, chickens are drained of all blood during processing. If you do spot a bit of pink-ness in your cooked meat, that’s myoglobin leaking from the purple bone marrow into the meat.
So long as it’s cooked to the correct temperature (an internal temp of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit), it should be safe to eat.
However, the chicken Hammond received was not simply a result of leaking myoglobin.
Several commenters suggested the chicken’s condition is a result of abuse.
“That looks like a massive hematoma,” one user suggested. “I know these birds are abused and I don’t like that energy in my body.”
“That’s not rotting that’s the chicken’s bones were mangled while it was alive so what you’re seeing is the internal bleeding of the chicken,” another said.
While the Daily Dot has reached out to Costco for more information on its chickens, research aligns with some commenters’ hunches that the chicken was mistreated or had not been bled correctly.
The Slaughterhouse Support Network (SSEC), a research facility in Spain, found similar-looking hematomas on the wings of chickens, or broilers, in 2021. “These bruises can occur during the loading and unloading of animals in transport to the slaughterhouse and are indicators of animal welfare deficits,” the report reads.
One user suggested that this problem extends beyond Costco’s chicken. “The meat in America cannot be trusted,” they said.
“Yeah while I was there they took 2 whole pallets of eggs out of the fridge area and said they were contaminated with the bird flu too! They gotta be careful,” Hammond responded.
Is this a result of the diminishing FDA resources?
Several commenters pointed to the Trump Administration slashing the Food and Drug Administration’s staffing in recent months.
“Unfortunately, that’s going to happen a lot more often,” one commenter wrote.
Health and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid off roughly 3,500 FDA employees earlier this year. However, he announced a reversal of some of those layoffs in late April, namely for drug safety labs in Puerto Rico and Detroit, as well as for food safety labs in Chicago and San Francisco, per CBS News.
Still, these cuts have heavily impacted the agency’s inspection of food manufacturers. The FDA inspects many aspects of American food manufacturing, including seafood, dairy, produce, and packaged goods, per Eater.
However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects poultry farms. Cuts to the USDA staff have been proposed by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who suggested removing 15,200 jobs.
These potential layoffs would come after over 15,000 employees left the USDA earlier this year under a “Deferred Resignation Program” offer. That included 555 employees of the Food Safety and Inspection Services.
Where does Costco’s rotisserie chicken come from?
The poultry industry in the United States is dominated by four main producers: Tyson, Perdue, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Sanderson Farms. While Costco does source from these farms, the retail chain launched its own chicken supply company, Lincoln Premium Poultry, in 2019.
However, as Tasting Table reported in September 2024, Costco’s Nebraska farm only provides about 4% of the chain’s rotisserie chickens. The other 96% are sourced from the larger, aforementioned brands.
@brycehammond4 Be careful with the chickens at Costco. I just got a super nasty surprise when I cut it open. #foodtiktok #chicken #fyp ♬ original sound – Bryce
Is halal meat the answer?
One commenter suggested that halal meat is a method to ensure the animals one consumes are treated ethically. “Try and get halal meat. It’s clean,” they said.
“Love that idea. I’ll have to find a place close by,” Hammond responded.
Halal meat is prepared to adhere to Islamic dietary restrictions, which require the animals consumed to be treated humanely and ethically. Halal chicken must have the entirety of its blood drained to be guaranteed Halal.
The Daily Dot reached out to Hammond via TikTok comment.
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