COSTCO WHOLESALE: KIRKLAND SIGNATURE FULLY COOKED BACON

SN Editorial Staff

Finding the perfect premium, presliced, precooked bacon for Costco Wholesale required corporate buyer Sarah George to make some personal sacrifices.

"I was in 10 bacon plants, looking for someone making a truly premium cooked bacon," she recalled. "I think the people who I sat next to on the plane were a little bit leery of me. That smoke smell sticks in your hair."

Unable to find a precooked bacon of high enough quality, Costco turned to its current bacon supplier, Hormel, to make one. The resulting product was co-branded Hormel. Hormel already makes a precooked bacon, but Costco's is sliced thicker.

"I think the big-gest deal with that product was to develop one that was plate-ready, so it's thick-sliced. It was designed to be big enough so that it looked like a real piece of bacon on the plate," George said.

Judges were impressed by the taste and appearance, said one of the panelists, Frank Dell. "We were concerned that if it was precooked and you were basically warming it up, you wouldn't have that fresh taste to it. It basically tasted as if you had just cooked raw bacon."

Costco introduced the product in June 2004 in a 1-pound package that sells for $8.99. It is merchandised in display-ready boxes in stand-up coolers, next to the milk and eggs.

Apart from sampling, Costco didn't give the bacon any special promotional treatment, as is its custom with new products. "We just rolled it out," George said. "And people bought it."

Sampling helped the bacon overcome a couple of barriers. It's not a product people are used to seeing in a premium version, and it costs more than regular bacon (even though it doesn't shrink after cooking, as regular bacon does). "Once they realize it really did translate, then I think they're much more likely to repeat purchase," George said.