Ivonne Cruz (@ivonnecruz2525) recorded herself during a Walmart outing discussing bathing suits, skirts, and rotisserie chicken.
It’s the last part of her clip that got folks talking in the comments section—as she claims that the popular retailer is extending the profitability of its rotisserie chickens by freezing the ones that aren’t purchased the day of and then marking them down to customers.
Her post about the chicken conundrum raked in over 37,000 views on the popular social media application, sparking a litany of comments from folks who were shocked at Cruz’s outrage.
“Unbelievable that things Walmart be doing how long were they sitting out there before they put them in the freezer to resell them again,” she adds in the text overlay as she walks through the aisles of the retail chain.
“I wanna ask you guys something: do you ever wonder what happens to the rotisserie chicken that they don’t sell here at Walmart?” Cruz asks viewers. “Let me show you what they do with it, hold on.”
The camera cuts to her ambling through the store: “Walk with me, walk with me, walk with me.”
She ends up beside a big refrigerated bin filled with bags of rotisserie chickens. “Right here,” she says, showing off the poultry. “They freeze it, so you guys could buy it after. That’s what they do. So if they don’t sell it they freeze it and sell it to you at six bucks?”
“If you’re ever wondering what they do to that chicken, that’s what they do. They don’t toss it, they freeze it and resell it to the consumer,” she says, before her video pivots to another portion of her shopping experience: clothes.
“Anyways, you guys, look what I found,” she says, holding up a red bathing suit to her body on camera as an over-the-clothes fit check.
But soon it was back to the chicken situation. “Guys I found some more chicken but this one, these are marked down to $3…don’t buy the $5 ones cause you could find them marked down…” she says before the video ends.
This isn’t the first time that Walmart has been called out for the way it sells meat products either. Some influencers share tips for shoppers to save money on groceries at the store, which is especially understandable ever since food inflation has skyrocketed since 2021. However, there have been others who’ve blasted the quality of the chain’s offerings along with the costs associated with them.
Walmart’s chicken has also become a subject of controversy, with some folks writing that they don’t believe it’s “real” or that it is being grown in a lab due to its “stringy” texture.
Commenters who replied to Cruz’s video were divided on the issue. Some folks didn’t have a problem with a business reselling pre-cooked chicken that’s later been refrigerated to sell at a more affordable price point, highlighting that another popular grocery store, Whole Foods, does the same thing. “Whole Foods chills and sells previously hot rotisserie chickens in the cold section the day after they’re cooked. There are ways to do it safely,” one user wrote.
Someone else said that they’ve purchased day-old rotisserie chicken on clearance and have never regretted it: “The one I go to , puts it on clearance the next day . I’ve bought it before it’s good.”
One person who said they worked at Walmart provided even further context into Cruz’s chicken video, stating that the protein is repurposed into other dishes, like getting it shredded and turned into chicken salad. “Worked at Walmart we make some for hot hold an some for blast freeze old hot hold gets turned to chicken salad,” they wrote.
These types of practices are par the course for other grocery store retailers as well, another commenter penned: “I worked at kroger and they did the same they came off the hot table put in a blast chiller and the next day they would put them in the fridge section.”
“Sam’s does this. Whatever didn’t sell in the time frame was put in the cooler and the next day they were put back out for sell as legs and thighs,” someone else echoed.
@ivonnecruz2525 Apparently, Walmart doesn’t throw anything away. Just saying
♬ original sound – Ivonne Cruz4893
Commenters in a Quora forum post discussing the fate of unsold rotisserie chickens were in line with some of the remarks left in response to Cruz’s TikTok. Meat is frequently pulled off the chicken bone and used in chicken salad, refrigerated, or frozen to be sold at a later time for a discounted price, or turned into “canned chicken meat” or donated to local food pantries which then becomes a tax write off for the business.
While several commenters seemed to not have a problem with this, some find the entire process a little suspect and maybe even unscrupulous. Taste of Home calls rotisserie chicken a “dark secret” in the grocery store industry, but not just because the pre-cooked chicken is being tossed in a fridge with a 20% markdown—but because the origin of the chicken and how it was cooked from the start is something folks may not be happy to learn about.
Taste of Home writes: “Well, it turns out there’s a secret behind your preroasted poultry. According to an article published by the California educational television channel KCET, the golden, juicy rotisserie chickens in grocery stores are often the unsold raw chickens that are about to expire. By selling them at a lower price, grocery stores make less money than they would on raw birds, but way more money than they would if they tossed the chickens out.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Walmart via media contact form and Cruz via TikTok comment for further information.