Costco has made a daily can of its new Kirkland prebiotic soda compulsory for every employee at its warehouses, the company announced on Tuesday, and has converted a loading bay in its Issaquah headquarters into a tasting hall where staff must drink in silence before their shifts begin.
Under the new schedule, cashiers, forklift drivers and pharmacists report at 6:00 a.m. to a row of chilled dispensers, where each worker must consume one full can while a supervisor records the time of the final sip. Managers said the rule applies equally to executives, and that the chief financial officer has so far finished his can in under four minutes, a figure the company described as a benchmark.
The policy has already changed the layout of several stores. In Ohio, a stockroom was emptied to make space for a second tasting hall, and the car park outside one Florida location has been resurfaced with white lines marking where delivery drivers must queue for their daily dose. Store managers have begun hiring additional staff whose sole task is to restock the dispensers and count the empty cans.
A company spokesman said the programme would be reviewed in the spring, but added that employees who reach a full year of uninterrupted consumption will be presented with a brass bottle opener engraved with the Kirkland logo. Asked whether the soda would be sold to customers at half the price of rival brands, he replied that the discount was, in the company's view, the least of its obligations to the public.