Kirkland Signature makes up more than 20% of sales at Costco and has built a reputation for being just as good as, if not better than, name brands. But not every product is a winner among shoppers. And when something flops, Costco doesn’t waste shelf space keeping it around. The misses are pulled quickly and quietly, often gone before most shoppers even notice.
Here are five discontinued Kirkland Signature products that shoppers hated.
Boxed Mac and Cheese
Somewhere in a boardroom, someone decided it was a good idea to take on Kraft with a Kirkland-branded box of powdered cheese and pasta, but at a fraction of the price. That may be the usual modus operandi for Kirkland, but this time it came off more cocky than calculated. The boxed Kirkland mac and cheese was hated with a burning passion by shoppers, so much so that it was one of the most bashed products.
“This was so gross. I ate one box and got rid of the rest of the case immediately after,” one Redditor said. “I donated it to a food pantry and felt guilty about it. How did they manage to make boxed Mac and cheese so bad?” added another. Shoppers complained about a weird, chemical taste, gritty cheese sauce, and starchy pasta. Costco took the hint and quietly pulled it before summer 2025, handing the shelf back to Kraft and Annie’s.
Light Beer
Costco shoppers are loyal to Kirkland, but they’re also ruthless. If they love a product, it usually earns a cult following. If they hate it, they’ll drag it on Reddit and other social media platforms for years. Kirkland Signature Light Beer fell firmly in the second category. It was cheap — 48 cans for $22.99 — but people called it fermented hay water or pond water with Necco wafers dissolved in it.
“Love everything Costco. This was the worst beer I ever tasted in my life,” one user said. Another added, “I’ll drink warm Coors Light. I’ll drink someone else’s beer. This is the only beer I’ve ever thrown away.” The taste was described as metallic, sour, and flat—undrinkable even by low-bar standards. It was discontinued in 2018 with zero fanfare.
Mango Smoothie
In 2023, Costco swapped out its popular fruit smoothie at the food court for a new mango version, and shoppers didn’t exactly scream in joy. The Kirkland Signature Mango Smoothie was marketed as having no added sugar and four servings of fruit, but many said it tasted more like fruit leather than fresh mango. “The mango smoothie is basically the flavor of dried/dehydrated mango, not fresh,” one user wrote on Reddit. It was so hated that it barely survived the summer — launched in June, gone by August.
Frozen Cocktails
Kirkland attempted to capitalize on the spiked popsicle trend with frozen cocktails, but they didn’t catch on. The texture was off—icy and jagged instead of smooth—and the flavors were too sweet to enjoy straight. People complained that they had to mix them with something else just to get through the pack. Despite advertising “no artificial sweeteners,” the ingredient list was full of artificial flavoring and food coloring. They quietly disappeared from shelves sometime in 2023, and no one really asked where they went.
5. Take-and-Bake Pizza
Costco’s Kirkland Signature take-and-bake pizza was supposed to give shoppers a way to skip frozen DiGiorno without having to line up at the food court. But unlike the chain’s rotisserie chicken or sheet cake, this one never hit cult status. People hated it. “You bake it at home, then throw it in the trash because it’s disgusting,” one Redditor summed it up. Others called it bland, dry, and a sad knockoff of the pizza you could get fresh for the same price, 20 feet away. It quietly disappeared sometime before 2022.
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