Costco Rotisserie Chicken Lawsuit: Preservatives and Salmonella

Costco is facing two proposed class action lawsuits over its $4.99 Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken, both filed in early 2026. One, filed in California in January, alleges the chicken was falsely advertised as containing “no preservatives” when it in fact contains sodium phosphate and carrageenan. The other, filed in Washington in February, alleges that the Nebraska plant supplying roughly 40% of Costco’s chicken has failed federal salmonella testing standards for years. Costco has moved to dismiss the preservatives case, calling it “fatally flawed,” and a hearing on that motion is scheduled for August 13, 2026.¹

The Preservatives Case: Johnston v. Costco

On January 22, 2026, California shoppers Bianca Johnston and Anastasia Chernov filed Johnston et al. v. Costco Wholesale Corporation (Case No. 3:26-cv-00403-AJB-AHG) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The complaint says Costco marketed the Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken with in-store signs and online ads reading “no preservatives,” and includes photos of that signage. The plaintiffs say they buy preservative-free foods on purpose and would not have purchased the chicken, or would have paid less, had they known about the two additives.²

Their attorneys at the Almeida Law Group argue Costco “systematically cheated customers out of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.”³ The suit seeks certification of a nationwide class of U.S. purchasers plus a California subclass, and alleges violations of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, California’s Unfair Competition Law, and California’s False Advertising Law. Damages are unspecified.²

Shortly after the case was filed, Costco removed the “no preservatives” language from its signage and website, saying only that it did so “to maintain consistency.”³

Are Sodium Phosphate and Carrageenan Preservatives?

The whole case turns on this question. Costco acknowledges both ingredients are in the product but says they “support moisture retention, texture and product consistency during cooking” rather than extend shelf life.³

Federal regulators back part of that framing. FDA rules classify carrageenan as an “emulsifier, stabilizer, or thickener,” not a preservative.⁴ USDA rules treat phosphates as a “restricted ingredient” in poultry, allowed up to 0.5% of the product and regulated as a way of reducing moisture loss during cooking.⁵

The plaintiffs argue that regulatory labels aside, these ingredients function as preservatives in ordinary usage by extending shelf life and maintaining texture. Similar “no preservatives” cases have survived early dismissal. In Simeone v. T. Marzetti Co. (2023), a federal court in New York let comparable claims about citric acid proceed, finding whether an ingredient acts as a preservative is a fact question, not one the court can resolve on the pleadings.¹

Costco’s Motion to Dismiss and the August Hearing

On June 4, 2026, Costco filed papers signaling it would move to dismiss. Its attorney, Charles Sipos, raised three arguments. The FDA and the plaintiffs’ own cited sources, Costco says, cut against calling these ingredients preservatives. The ingredient panel discloses both additives as part of the seasoning, so the product is “accurately labeled.” And there was no price premium to refund: the chicken has sold for $4.99 throughout the period in question and still sells at $4.99 now that the “no preservatives” claim has been pulled. “This admission is fatal: there is no price premium, and there never was one,” the filing said.⁶ Costco also noted the plaintiffs did not identify any competitor selling a whole rotisserie chicken for less than $4.99.⁷

The dismissal hearing is set for August 13, 2026, at 10 a.m. in the Southern District of California. The court has not ruled on class certification.¹

The Salmonella Case: Taylor v. Costco

Three weeks after the preservatives suit, Missouri resident Lisa Taylor filed a separate proposed class action in federal court in Seattle. Taylor v. Costco Wholesale Corporation (Case No. 2:26-cv-00528), filed February 12, 2026, alleges Costco has failed to control salmonella contamination at Lincoln Premium Poultry, the company’s processing plant in Fremont, Nebraska.⁸

The complaint leans on two outside reports. A December 2025 study by the advocacy group Farm Forward, “Contaminated Costco,” analyzed USDA inspection data and found the Fremont plant received the agency’s worst food safety designation, a Category 3 rating, in 92% of reporting periods since it opened in 2019. From September 2023 through July 2025, the plant was Category 3 100% of the time, meaning it failed every monthly salmonella test for nearly two years. The report estimated more than one in ten whole birds and one in six packages of chicken breasts from the plant tested positive for salmonella.⁹ An October 2025 Consumer Reports study separately identified roughly 75 of the nation’s nearly 900 poultry plants as Category 3, Lincoln Premium among them, alongside facilities operated by Butterball, Cargill, Perdue, and Pitman Farms.¹⁰

Taylor’s suit seeks compensatory and treble damages for anyone who bought Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken or raw Kirkland chicken parts from Costco since January 1, 2019. The case has not been certified, and no trial date is set.⁸

The Fremont facility is Costco’s own operation. The company built the feed mill, hatchery, and slaughter plant, which processes over 100 million chickens a year and supplies about 40% of Costco’s chicken, all sold under Kirkland Signature.¹¹

Why a Failing Plant Keeps Operating

A Category 3 rating means a plant’s salmonella results exceed the USDA maximums of 15.4% for chicken parts and 9.8% for whole chickens, with no ceiling on how far past those numbers a plant can go. Even so, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service cannot order a recall, halt sales, or shut down a plant based on salmonella testing alone. In April 2025, the agency withdrew a proposed rule that would have classified certain salmonella strains as illegal adulterants in poultry, which is the classification that would have unlocked those enforcement tools.¹¹ That regulatory gap is a large part of why a civil suit is the mechanism now being used.

What Costco Shoppers Can Do

Neither case has reached class certification, so there is nothing to opt into and no settlement to claim. If either suit is later certified and settled, class members would typically be U.S. purchasers of the Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken (for the preservatives case) or purchasers of Kirkland rotisserie chicken and raw chicken parts since January 1, 2019 (for the salmonella case). Shoppers who want to preserve a potential claim can hold on to receipts, membership records, and any photos of the “no preservatives” signage they encountered before Costco removed it in early 2026.²

The next moment to watch is the August 13, 2026 dismissal hearing in San Diego. A ruling for Costco would end the preservatives case at the pleading stage; a ruling for the plaintiffs would clear the way toward class certification and discovery. The salmonella case is on its own, slower track in Seattle.¹

1
USA Today. Costco Responds to Rotisserie Chicken Lawsuit
2
ClassAction.org. Johnston et al. v. Costco Wholesale Corporation Complaint
3
CBC News. Costco Chicken Lawsuit
4
eCFR. 21 CFR 172.620 – Carrageenan
5
USDA FSIS. Processing Inspectors Calculations Handbook
6
Detroit News. Costco Responds to Rotisserie Chicken Lawsuit
7
The Spokesman-Review. Costco Says Claims Against Its $5 Rotisserie Chicken Are Fatally Flawed
8
Food & Wine. Costco Rotisserie Chicken Class Action Lawsuits
9
Farm Forward. Inside Costco’s Chicken Supply Chain
10
Consumer Reports Advocacy. The Most Contaminated Poultry Plants in the U.S.
11
Sentient Media. Costco Chicken Plant Keeps Failing Tests for Salmonella