I'm a professional baker. I tried chocolate-chip cookies from Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and Safeway to find the best.
- I tried chocolate-chip cookies from the bakery section of Kroger, Safeway, Walmart, and Costco.
- As a pro baker, I had high expectations — but Safeway and Walmart didn't impress me much.
- Costco's cookies were soft and not too sweet with lots of chocolate chunks.
As a professional baker, I've probably made thousands of chocolate-chip cookies from scratch.
Chocolate-chip cookies were also one of the first things I learned to make as a kid, and I've since spent a lot of time refining my own recipes for different versions of the classic, from soft and chewy to crispy and lacy.
So, of course, I have strong opinions on what makes a good chocolate-chip cookie.
I don't like them overly sweet, which typically happens when there's not enough bitter-but-balancing chocolate folded into the dough. Soft centers and crispy edges are ideal, but there are certainly a lot of differing viewpoints on cookie texture.
Although I usually make big batches of my own dough to store in the freezer for a rainy day, I also understand that when a craving hits, you want a store-bought option that will satisfy.
So, I tried chocolate-chip cookies from the bakery section at four national chains near me in Seattle — Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart. Here's how they stacked up.
I could tell at first glance the chain's cookies — from its Kirkland Signature brand — were loaded with 1/2-inch chunks of chocolate.
Notably, Costco's bakery is only accessible to members for in-person shopping. Memberships to the wholesaler start at $65 per year and come with lots of discounts and special perks.
Texturally, they were soft in the center with slightly firmer edges — but, overall, they're ideal for those who like cookies soft and chewy.
The cookies also had a pleasant and prominent vanilla flavor. I also appreciated their golden color, which might be indicative of more brown sugar being in the dough. The other cookies I tried were paler.
These cookies were slightly smaller than the rest and didn't seem to have a ton of chips.
The color led me to guess that Walmart doesn't use a lot of brown sugar in its cookies. Brown sugar is what gives chocolate-chip cookies deep toffee and molasses notes.
This cookie was also much sweeter than the others, likely a result of a lot of white sugar in the dough, which is sweeter than brown sugar.
There was also very little chocolate — just a few small bits — which left the cookie feeling unbalanced even though it had a great soft center.
At first glance, Safeway's cookies seemed to have a fairly balanced amount of chocolate.
The center of the cookie was soft, but the thinner edges had a pleasant snap. That said, the cookie didn't have a lot of chew.
In terms of chocolate, these fell somewhere in the middle of the bunch. They had a decent amount of chips but were not loaded with them. The chocolate chips in the cookies were also on the sweeter side.
Overall, the cookie was a little one-note, coming off as just sweet. It was not unpleasant, but it was also not the best cookie on the market, in my opinion.
The cookies I got at Kroger were labeled with Fred Meyer, a local northwest chain owned by Kroger. Although Fred Meyer and Kroger merged in 1998, some stores and items — like these cookies — still represent the Fred Meyer brand.
At first glance, I could tell these cookies were filled with lots of semisweet chocolate chips.
It was also similarly golden on the outside but overall was sweeter than the Costco cookies were.
It lacked any notable vanilla flavor, which I associate with chocolate-chip cookies. It was also missing those signature molasses and toffee undertones.
As a professional baker who makes chocolate-chip cookies daily, I felt Costco's cookie came the closest to tasting homemade.
The soft texture, vanilla-forward flavor, and ample dark-chocolate chunks set it apart from the others.
The Fred Meyer cookies from my local Kroger came in a close second place. Walmart's version felt a little too much like a sugar cookie to me, and Safeway's fell a bit short. But really, it's hard to go wrong with a cookie from any of these chains.
This story was originally published on September 16, 2022, and most recently updated on November 11, 2024.