COSTCO’S $9.99 CROISSANT DONUTS LEFT SHOPPERS DIVIDED
The Costco Mini Croissant Donuts, a $9.99 box of 20 bite-size pastries made by Canadian bakery CT Bakery, spent the summer splitting shoppers between “so good” and “extremely stale.” Costco-focused Instagram accounts hyped them, and by August 1, 2026, The Takeout said they seemed to have disappeared from stores.
The New York Post reported on July 6, 2026 that each box held 10 glazed and 10 cinnamon-sugar pastries. The paper called them a hybrid of a croissant and a donut. The Takeout described them as two-bite treats.
The Takeout also reported that the pastries used enriched wheat flour and vegetable-oil shortening to get their flaky texture.
How the hype started
The pastries had been getting attention for weeks before the Post wrote about them. USA Today reported that a Costco influencer posted a clip of the 20-count package on June 14, 2026. Tasting Table said @costcobuys spotted them the same weekend.
That account went on to call them “everything we never knew we needed” and “a crossover between a croissant and a donut that we are completely obsessed with,” SheFinds reported.
CT Bakery’s products come from a company that began as a small Canadian donut shop and grew into an international supplier of specialty donuts, Yahoo Lifestyle reported.
The Post set the box against the original Cronut, the flaky, cream-filled pastry Dominique Ansel invented in 2013. The paper said the Cronut takes three days to make from scratch, which limited sales to several hundred a day. A $9.99 box of 20 was a very different proposition.
What shoppers said
Before anyone had tasted them, the mood was optimistic. One fan wrote, “These look so good! Can’t wait to try.” Another said, “Definitely adding this to my cart!”
Opinions split once people bit in. One customer called the pastries “so good,” while another called them “extremely stale.” That customer said the glazed ones were “very wet.”
Another shopper wrote, “I tried them. They’re not all that fresh, and cinnamon-sugar ones get very dry. It was a one-and-only try.”
Not everyone was disappointed. “Bought them today [in] Plain city Ohio. They are awesome,” a commenter wrote under the @costcobuys post.
Finding a box
Getting a box depended on which warehouse you walked into. Parade reported that 144 Costco warehouses were stocking them, with sightings on the East Coast and in the Midwest.
“I can never find any of these things at my local Costco,” one shopper said. Others also said they could not find the pastries near them.
USA Today reported that price and availability could vary by market. UnoTV reported that some locations charged more than $9.99. The Post told shoppers to check Costco’s website for local stock, and Good Housekeeping also said availability varied by store.
Costco has kept busy on the sweet side elsewhere, too. Its food courts have been rolling out an apple pie sundae.
As for the croissant donuts, The Takeout said in its August 1, 2026 report, later updated on October 27, 2026, that they seemed to have disappeared from Costco and could return.
