The wholesale giant has finished swapping Pepsi products, including its newest lemon-lime soda, for Coca-Cola across nearly all U.S. warehouse food courts.
Costco has quietly removed Starry, PepsiCo's lemon-lime soda, from its warehouse food courts nationwide, completing a multi-year reversal that returns Coca-Cola to its fountain machines after more than a decade of Pepsi exclusivity, according to a September 20, 2026 report from The Street. The change, which unfolded gradually through 2025 and into early 2026, means the iconic $1.50 hot dog-and-soda combo is now served with Coke products instead of the Pepsi lineup that had defined it since 2013.
Raleigh Restaurants Feel Squeeze as Diesel Prices Hit Record High
How Starry's Costco Run Ended Almost as Soon as It Began
View this post on Instagram
Starry replaced Sierra Mist as PepsiCo's lemon-lime entry in early 2023 and briefly became the standard citrus soda option in Costco's Pepsi-supplied food courts. But its tenure proved short-lived. The Street's September 20, 2026 report documented that Costco has "quietly" dropped the relatively new soda from its shelves, noting that items purchased at the warehouse chain one week can vanish from availability days later.
The disappearance of Starry was not an isolated inventory decision but the final visible symptom of a much larger vendor switch. Throughout 2025 and into early 2026, Costco systematically replaced its entire Pepsi fountain lineup — Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Starry — with Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Sprite, according to reporting from Salon, Delish, Fox5DC and The Street. Sprite now occupies the lemon-lime slot once held by Starry.
NCLT Five-Member Bench Stays Subhash Chandra's ₹6.25 Crore Repayment Plan Order
A Decade-Long Pendulum Between Coke and Pepsi
Costco's beverage allegiance has swung dramatically over the past 13 years. For approximately 27 years, the company served Coca-Cola exclusively in its food courts, according to Salon's coverage of the 2025 shareholder meeting. That changed in 2013, when Costco signed an exclusive agreement with PepsiCo, a move Costco Insider and subsequent reporting characterized as a cost-saving measure designed to preserve the chain's famous $1.50 hot dog-and-soda combo amid rising costs.
The Pepsi era lasted until Costco's annual shareholder meeting on January 23, 2025, when CEO Ron Vachris confirmed the company would reverse course. "Yes, that is accurate. This summer we will be converting our food court fountain business back over to Coca-Cola," Vachris told shareholders, according to reporting corroborated by Delish, Fox5DC and The Street. Salon summarized the announcement plainly: Costco's food court would "no longer serve Pepsi products," switching instead to the vendor that had supplied it before 2013.
The Rollout Timeline From Announcement to Completion
Coca-Cola confirmed to Fox Business, as reported by Salon on July 29, 2025, that the fountain rollout would reach all U.S. warehouses by fall 2025. MSN's coverage from June 29, 2025 described the transition as already "completed" nationwide at that point for many locations, framing customer reaction as sharply split along brand loyalty lines.
By January 2026, The Street reported that Costco had completed the transition from Pepsi to Coca-Cola at most warehouse locations, effectively finishing a process that began with Vachris's January 2025 announcement. The September 2026 report on Starry's removal represents the coda to that process — the point at which even PepsiCo's newest product, which had barely established itself in Costco's food courts, was fully phased out in favor of Sprite.
Divided Reactions From Coke Loyalists and Pepsi Holdouts
Customer sentiment has broken along familiar brand lines. Coca-Cola loyalists welcomed the shift as a return to Costco's traditional identity, with one member's reaction captured in coverage as, "It feels like Costco again." Pepsi and Starry fans, by contrast, voiced frustration over losing their preferred soda at the $1.50 combo price point. One Reddit comment cited in Yahoo-syndicated coverage read, "Sprite is no match for Starry," while other customers said they would bring their own drinks on future visits.
Industry-focused outlets including The Street and MarketBeat framed the switch as part of Coca-Cola's broader momentum in securing high-visibility food-service partnerships, noting that Coke was also poised to replace Pepsi as the official soda of Carnival cruise lines around the same period. No evidence in current reporting indicates PepsiCo publicly contested the end of its Costco exclusivity; coverage uniformly characterizes the change as a contractual and pricing decision rather than a public dispute between the two companies.
What the Switch Means for Costco's Pricing Strategy Going Forward
Despite the vendor overhaul, Costco has kept its $1.50 hot dog-and-soda combo unchanged, a price point repeatedly cited across coverage as the central constraint shaping both the original 2013 Pepsi deal and the 2025 return to Coca-Cola. That consistency suggests Costco's negotiating leverage with beverage suppliers remains tied directly to preserving that specific price, regardless of which soda brand supplies the fountains.
For PepsiCo, the loss of Costco's fountain business removes a prominent on-premise showcase for Starry just as the brand was gaining a foothold, though it continues to compete with Sprite in retail channels like supermarkets and convenience stores. For consumers still loyal to Pepsi products, the only remaining option at Costco is purchasing canned or bottled Pepsi separately where stocked, since the fountain machines across nearly all U.S. warehouses have now fully converted to Coca-Cola's lineup.
