Yes, You Can Make a Meal From Costco Samples—Here's Proof
One of the best-known perks of grocery shopping at Costco is, of course, the food samples. The popular handouts are free, unlimited, and usually quite abundant, especially during busy weekends.
Though Costco largely abandoned the giveaways during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic for safety reasons—a major bummer for shoppers and a big detriment for food marketers as well—most warehouses began handing out freebies again in 2021.
It's often said that members can "make a meal" out of all the free stuff available at their warehouse. One woman is demonstrating just how easy that actually is.
Canadian TikToker Tasmin Dhaliwal has been getting a lot of attention lately, thanks to her video series about dining exclusively on Costco samples, according to The New York Post.
One such video from Dec. 21—which shows Dhaliwal consuming at least eight different items in a single outing—racked up over seven million views on the popular social media platform. "It's like having a full course at fancy restaurant," wrote one commenter.
@tasmindhaliwal Everything was delicious 🤤 #costco #costcosamples #dinner #foodchallenge #mukbang #mukbangeatingshow #costcosamplecheck #fyp #fypシ゚viral ♬ mario sound – mandycap
Dhaliwal has repeated the samples-only meal exercise at least half a dozen times, often attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers, if not more.
"The idea to start going to Costco for samples came on while I was at a Costco location grocery shopping," Dhaliwal told the Post in an interview this week, noting that her original idea was to shoot video in the warehouse's food court.
She apparently didn't even know about the abundant samples beforehand. "When I stumbled onto a Costco sample kiosk … and five or six more following that one, I was too full to hit up the food court," she told the tabloid.
The videos have received a ton of feedback from fellow freeloaders: "the only reason I go to Costco," one noted. "I thought I was the only one doing that lol," another added.
And total freebie newbies as well: "I wanna go and do this so bad."
Yet another commenter posed a question that a lot of Costco managers probably want to know as well: "so would you like to buy?"
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