It’s a random weekday night and you’re too tired to cook but too lazy or undesirous of people-ing to go out. Nothing looks good in the fridge but you don’t feel like dropping your hard-earned dollars on takeout. Yet you want something hot, fresh, restaurant quality. What do you do?
What did she find at Costco?
According to one woman, you just pop some frozen pre-made food from Costco in the oven or air fryer and voila! Restaurant-quality food right in your kitchen. Not just restaurant quality, either; actual restaurant food.
TikTok creator Karissa (@karissamatic) swears that the shrimp tempura you buy at Costco is literally the same shrimp they serve at Asian buffets.
“This is the Kirkland Signature brand shrimp tempura,” she says in a viral TikTok, brandishing the bag. “…This tastes the exact same as the Asian buffet, as the expensive shrimp tempura that you get when you go out.”
She also claims that the individual cheesecakes the Asian buffets near her serve are bought in bulk.
“I always thought those were homemade. They’re not. They are from Sam’s Club,” she says, adding that they’re sold in the freezer section.
The move to pre-fab food
For the bulk of human history, all food was made from scratch—that is, the raw ingredients. Sure, certain items like cheese and pasta have existed for centuries, but prepackaged food as we know it really didn’t exist until much more recently.
The invention of hermetic bottling in 1809 and pasteurization in 1864 launched the march towards processed foods that greatly accelerated in the mid-20th century.
Today, practically any food you can think of is sold in pre-made form at grocery stores nationwide.
Over the decades, restaurants have increasingly moved towards pre-made food. In the industry, this is known as pre-fab, or prefabricated, food. That’s why the lava cake tastes the same pretty much anywhere you order it. The same is true of common menu items like spinach and artichoke dip, jalapeno poppers, cheesesticks, and much more.
If it’s served battered and fried at a chain restaurant, there’s a pretty good chance it’s pre-fab.
That doesn’t mean it tastes bad. Many of these items are wildly popular, hence why they’re on so many menus.
So why do many people share Karissa’s opinion that “Sysco is ruining all the restaurants.” (Sysco is a wholesale restaurant distributor.)
What’s wrong with pre-fab food?
Pre-fab food isn’t nutritionally all that different from food that’s made from scratch—or is it?
Much pre-fab food is highly- or ultra-processed. Ultra-processed foods are a staple of the American diet and are increasingly blamed for the obesity epidemic, the rise in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers.
See, while technically a homemade treat contains most of the same ingredients as a pre-fab one, the latter typically has far more preservatives and is higher in saturated fats, salt, and sugar. There’s nothing wrong with fat, salt, or sugar; it’s the quantity that’s the problem.
Similarly, the preservatives that pre-fab foods contain are technically safe and not considered hazardous to consume.
But a diet high in preservatives is generally likely to contain fewer nutrients than one that’s high in whole foods.
And some preservatives and additives in these foods can have more serious health effects, such as interfering with hormones, brain function, and increasing risks of certain chronic conditions and diseases. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that children are particularly susceptible to these harms.
So should you avoid pre-fab foods?
It’s nearly impossible to entirely cut out ultra-processed and pre-fab foods. That would essentially mean giving up potato chips, people. Let’s be serious.
It’s also likely unnecessary to do so to maintain your health.
So long as you keep it to a minimum and opt for whole foods or items made from scratch more often than not, that shrimp tempura or spin dip you indulge in now and again isn’t going to make a dent in your health.
Nevertheless, Karissa is right: pre-fab food from places like Sysco, Costco, Sam’s Club, and Restaurant Depot has a bad rap.
“Any restaurant depending on Sysco to do the cooking is already trash and y’all obviously couldn’t tell the difference until now,” one person commented on her post.
Another remarked drily, “People learning how cheap restaurants work in 2025 is crazy.”
People still love it
But, as others were quick to point out, that doesn’t make it any less tasty.
“Can someone find the vendor Chilis uses for the triple dipper? Thanks,” one commenter implored.
“Who knows who delivers the ham and cheese bars,” another asked.
Love it or hate it, and there’s plenty of both, pre-fab food isn’t coming off the menu anytime soon.
“A former restaurant owner (my cousin) told me that his customers always raved about his spring rolls and asked for the recipe,” said one. “He’d give the basic ingredients but laughed and told me that all the food is from Sysco!!”
A second agreed, “Did everyone think these restaurants and buffets were just making all this food ?! *they haven’t for decades.”
As Karissa points out, there is an upside to your favorite restaurant sourcing their food from places like Costco.
“It is so good and it tastes exactly like the restaurant one,” she says of the shrimp tempura.
Karissa did not respond to inquiries sent via direct message on TikTok and Instagram.
@karissamatic So many “homemade” restaurant meals are just pre-bagged Sysco food heated up and plated pretty. No wonder everything tastes the same lately. #restauranttruths #foodindustry #sysco #behindthekitchen #honestreview ♬ original sound – karissamatic ????
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