Costco sued over rotisserie chicken

Shoppers are suing Costco over its rotisserie chicken.

The lawsuit isn’t over the cost or the taste. Instead, two people in California are suing the warehouse club because the chicken had been promoted as preservative-free, but contained two preservatives, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The two shoppes said the company misled customers by using both sodium phosphate and carrageenan in the $4.99 chicken. The chemicals were listed in the ingredient list.

They are both common food additives, with sodium phosphate used to control pH and reduce fat oxidation, while carrageenan thickens and stabilizes foods, USA Today reported.

The Food and Drug Administration said both are considered safe to eat. Some studies have shown kidney strain when there is excessive consumption of sodium phosphate, while carrageenan can lead to digestive inflammation and gut irritation.

The plaintiffs, Bianca Johnston and Anastasia Chernov, said they bought the chicken because they thought they were preservative free due to the signs saying so, adding that they both prefer to buy preservative-free foods when they can, the Times reported.

“Costco Wholesale Corporation has systemically cheated customers out of tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars by falsely advertising its Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken as containing ‘no preservatives’,” the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit contends that without accurate advertising, customers cannot make an informed decision whether to buy Costco’s chicken or a competitor’s.

The chicken is only $4.99 and is less than what competitors sell theirs for. Retail experts said it is sold at little to no profit to have customers to come in and make additional purchases.

The company told USA Today that it had removed the “no preservative” statements in store and online to “maintain consistency among the labeling on our rotisserie chickens and the signs in our warehouses/on-line presentations.”

The lawsuit was filed in hopes of bringing a class-action suit against Costco, the Times reported.

Despite the legal filing, the women said that they still plan on buying Costco’s rotisserie chicken again if it were to be preservative-free, as long as Costco’s claims that it is are accurate, KTLA reported.