Who had a better pumpkin pie?

[SamSpade]

East Idaho News appeared to be having a pie judging and potluck contest for employees of the radio stations and website and made anyone around taste these two pumpkin pies to pick a favorite.
The winner may surprise some.

Taste test: Costco or Sam's Club Pumpkin Pie

I'll end by saying I prefer sweet potato pie over pumpkin varieties. Haggen used to run radio ads emphasizing why their pumpkin pies were out in displays over ice. Oh the good ol' days . . .

[Alpha8472]

I totally agree that sweet potato pie is much better.

[ClownLoach]

Apple pie.

[storewanderer]

The Sam's Pumpkin Pie is a thaw and sell item and is actually a Product of Canada (many of the Wal Mart bakery pies are also a product of Canada).

I think the Costco pies are actually made in store...?

I've tried some store bought pumpkin pies over the years from Safeway, Smiths, and Wal Mart and these pies... are just not very good... I've had some frozen ones that have been OKAY- but really it is better to make this product yourself. It isn't terribly hard to make. The difference in taste is night and day.

[veteran+]

1. Cherry
2. Mixed Berry

[ClownLoach]

The Sam's Pumpkin Pie is a thaw and sell item and is actually a Product of Canada (many of the Wal Mart bakery pies are also a product of Canada).

I think the Costco pies are actually made in store...?

I've tried some store bought pumpkin pies over the years from Safeway, Smiths, and Wal Mart and these pies... are just not very good... I've had some frozen ones that have been OKAY- but really it is better to make this product yourself. It isn't terribly hard to make. The difference in taste is night and day.

I believe Costco is supplementing store production on pumpkin pies, because I saw shrink wrapped pallets of pies being stocked which had labels that didn't match. So they may have some thaw and serve with others that are baked in warehouse. Or maybe they've made many in advance and were freezing them on site for later resale? I don't think the in store freezers would be able to properly freeze these though.

Much of Costco bakery is also product of Canada. In the Canadian stores they offer up the frozen pre-made items for sale in bulk, which I have not seen here even in business centers. For example they sell cases of their cookie dough already pre-portioned into discs so they're ready for baking. The Canadian stores offer a much larger bakery assortment, and the Quebec stores... Incredible thanks to the French influence. I think they have an entire exclusive scratch made line at the Laval location just outside Montréal with dozens of bakery workers wearing berets and the entire store smells like a bakery.

Sam's Club is the same thing actually, a mix of in store baked and thaw/serve. They push a different variety of pies and really push their Apple Pie that is store baked. They also source thaw/serve sweet potato pie and pecan pies. I should also mention that as much as I like to commend Sam's Club on their improved stores, they focused more on the customer side (layout, signage, visuals) than the employee side. Many of their stores that look like they were fully remodeled still lack bakery production space, adequate meat cutting space and so forth. In those stores there is a much higher percentage of thaw and serve type bakery items, shelf ready meats, and more. It isn't immediately transparent as the advantage of Sam's is using the Walmart distribution network so they can create very similar offerings and in some cases intentionally off-site production in a region to a commissary within a DC. So it's very likely that if you shop a newer build Sam's that items will be fresh baked or made there, while older build stores will be thaw and serve/commissary prep.

I'm not sure if baking yourself is the way to go. How many cans of pumpkin does it use? That is pretty expensive these days. Might be one of those examples of food where the price at Costco is same or better than if you made it yourself.

[mbz321]

I believe Costco is supplementing store production on pumpkin pies, because I saw shrink wrapped pallets of pies being stocked which had labels that didn't match. So they may have some thaw and serve with others that are baked in warehouse. Or maybe they've made many in advance and were freezing them on site for later resale? I don't think the in store freezers would be able to properly freeze these though.

Costco worker here. All the pumpkin pies are made in-house, pretty much around the clock leading up to Thanksgiving (Apple pies come in frozen and they are just baked on site. Lattice used to be put on them in-house, but they stopped that a few years ago). They are stored on pallets in the big freezers on the sales floor if they run out of room in the bakery freezer. Besides maintenance projects, right before Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only times where there are workers in the store overnight (at least in my area).

[hotelmetropole]

I'm Team Costco on this one - their pumpkin pie is a game-changer. But sweet potato pie takes the cake (or pie?) for me any day. And those Haggen radio ads? Classic.