Costco Shopping Guide

Kirkland Scores

Our catalog holds 15 scored Kirkland Signature products. Costco sells far more than that; the USDA dataset we score simply does not carry them. We score products one at a time and do not publish a score for a brand, so the product-level scores below are the ones to read.

Costco and Kirkland Signature products with the lowest processing scores in our analysis, one per category:

Data pattern: nuts, frozen produce, canned and frozen fish and plain milk are the kind of item that comes out lowest here, and they are also the ones worth buying in a bulk format. Plain single-ingredient pantry goods such as sugar and oil sit at the floor of the scale too, which is a statement about how little is done to them and not about how much of them to eat.

The Costco and Kirkland Signature products in our catalog with the highest Processing Scores:

Context: this is the top of the range, not a long tail. The highest Processing Score anywhere in the Costco and Kirkland Signature products we hold is 13.0. Both of these are assembled convenience items.

• Judge Kirkland product by product here: With 15 Kirkland Signature products scored in our catalog, read the individual scores above.
• Bulk staples score lowest: Nuts, frozen vegetables, canned fish and plain dairy are the items that come out lowest on processing in our analysis, and they are also the ones that keep well in bulk.
• The high end is short: the table above lists the Costco and Kirkland Signature products in our catalog that score highest, and the highest of them is 13.0.
• Single-ingredient pantry items score lowest: plain oils, plain sugar and plain grains are the kind of product that reaches the floor of the scale. A low Processing Score describes the ingredient list, not the diet.