Costco’s North American customers renew their memberships 92 percent of the time, and a lot of it has to do with chocolate chips.

The Kirkland, Washington-based wholesale club’s Kirkland Signature store-brand semi-sweet chocolate chips disappeared from its shelves in 2024 after cocoa prices soared.

Reddit was aflame with comments about the end of what many customers considered a sweet-tooth staple of their pantries.

“Man this sucks,” BornWithAnAK wrote. “I was just telling my partner yesterday that the Kirkland chocolate chips are easily my favorite.”

“They are seriously the best chocolate chip ever,” Incognito816 wrote. “I use them for chocolate fondue, chocolate pudding, brownies, cc cookies, drinking chocolate. Anything chocolate - it’s my only go-to! Nothing else compares, and I tried to find something as good when they discontinued them a few years back.”

Kirkland Signature chocolate chips came in multiple variations, including a dairy-free option that would be sorely missed.

“This is the worst news,” user 86VFR wrote. “I own an allergy-friendly bakery and the blue Kirkland chocolate chips are what I buy to make cookies because they are dairy-free. Looks like I need to make a trip and load up my freezer.”

The lengthy laments reflected customers' love for the combination of quality and value that the wholesale club’s products provide. But it’s that exact pursuit of value that can make beloved items disappear from shelves if production costs are too high.

It’s that fine line between disappointment and delight that contributes to Costco’s success, said Alex Hennick, president of supply-chain consultancy AD Hennick and Associates.

“Costco’s strategy is interesting because … part of the business model is built around the ‘treasure hunt’ and ‘while supplies last’ mentality,” Hennick said in an email to The Independent. “It creates a sense of urgency. So, when customers find something they like at a great price, they know they may not see it again, which encourages them to stock up.”

The company’s goal is to sell its Kirkland Signature products – which include everything from coffee and pizza to toilet paper and dishwasher detergent – for at least 20 percent less than a similar national brand, the company noted in a 2024 third-quarter earnings call.

If a product meets the company’s requirements for the Kirkland Signature brand, it has a chance to get on the shelf.

But if costs are too high or the quality isn’t there, it can doom an item from making a home in the wholesale club’s cavernous stores or eliminate the product from shelves, as was the case with Kirkland Signature chocolate chips.

While the death of a popular Kirkland Signature product brings disappointment, it’s a risk that members take, said Chris Ribeiro, an assistant professor at Rutgers Business School and owner of retail and consumer strategy firm Starlight Analytics.

“Members trade off (unknowingly) on their mix stability for greater price reliability,” Ribeiro told The Independent in an email. “Customers know this, so they stock up or spend more knowing it might go away.”

Reddit certainly has the receipts for Costco customers’ rush to stock up on Kirkland chocolate chips – multiple users had plans to stock up on the morsels and one user posted a photo of three hulking red bags of the product crammed into their freezer.

Another inventory quirk that draws customers to Costco is that the company moves its inventory around the store – Kirkland Signature olive oil could be next to the freezer section one day and five aisles away the next.

“Things you might find near the milk one trip are suddenly near the registers or entrance on the next,” Ribeiro said. “This makes the experience a little like a treasure hunt and keeps customers exploring the store.”

Costco’s handling of Kirkland Signature items may seem like an exercise in retail smoke and mirrors, but it’s not – even if there’s no telling how long a product will be available in stores, Ribeiro said. Why? Customers have bought into the in-store brand’s quality.

“Costco is laser-focused on making sure Kirkland is as good or better as the national brand it competes with,” he said. “In cases where other store brands may seem like a 'trade down' to customers…people have come to expect [Kirkland Signature] to be 'as good' over time.”

As an example, Costco’s Kirkland Signature Helles Lager won a bronze medal in the Munich-Style Helles category at The World Beer Cup, “arguably the most prestigious beer competition in the world,” Forbes wrote.

Fittingly, Costco announced in July that it was discontinuing the award-winning beer, food site TastingTable reported. A communal lament made up of lager fans and chocolate chip devotees won’t be around for long, though.

Cooking site Allrecipes reported this month that Costco’s chocolate chips are starting to appear at wholesale clubs across the country again.