Marinated Artichoke Hearts - Kirkland vs HyTop

Marinated artichoke hearts are all about the same...right?

Most of my family love artichokes and marinated artichoke hearts.  I usually buy the small 6.5 oz jar of marinated hearts from Walmart or WinCo when they are on sale.  On sale, a 6.5 oz jar costs me $0.99.  When I stopped by WinCo at the beginning of this month and saw that they were on sale, I picked up a few jars.

I remembered a friend talking about how they love artichoke hearts and wondered if Costco carried them.  Why yes they do.  I had never purchased them from Costco because they used to come in one ginormous jar and if I opened up that one jar, it would probably be devoured in 2 days by my kids.  I want my $10 worth of hearts to last longer than 2 days, so I've always just purchased the smaller (pre portioned) hearts.  However, Costco recently reduced their very large jar into two 33 oz jars, making it a little more convenient.

After WinCo, I stopped by Costco and picked up a twin pack of marinated artichoke hearts.  I don't remember the exact price, but it was just under $10 for a total of 66 oz.  Even at $10 for the pack, that's cheaper than the cheapest 6.5 oz bottle I could find.  I have been pleasantly surprised not only at the price per ounce, but at the quality of the product.  Go figure, right? I mean, it is Costco.  Costco does carry many great quality items, and they are always bringing new things to the table.  They don't consider their Kirkland brand to be generic.  They consider it to surpass the quality of the leading name brand.  That's why things like Kirkland diapers are more expensive than the Huggies diapers, and the Kirkland premium ice cream is more expensive than other brands.

The Comparison:

Kirkland         HyTop

I came home and compared WinCo's Hy-Top brand of hearts against Costco's Kirkland brand.  I figured there would be a difference, but I was a bit surprised as to how much of a difference there was.  The taste of the two brands was very similar, but the size was unbelievable.  I compared them side by side with the tender leaves and without.  Marinated artichoke hearts are a little deceiving because it's really not only the hearts.  It includes the most tender leaves in the center of the vegetable, along with the hair/fur, and then the heart and stem.  My first problem was finding a Kirkland artichoke heart that was small enough to do a fair comparison.  We are now at the bottom of the second jar, and I have finally found some artichoke quarters, but both of the jars were mostly halves. So, I took the smallest half from Costco and the largest piece from Hy-Top...just to be fair.  As you can see in the pictures, the Kirkland heart is so much larger than the other.  Kirkland's doesn't include the stem and Hy-top's does.  Even with the stem included it doesn't measure up.

 Nutritional Value:
Another thing that surprised me was the nutritional value.  Artichokes are a good source of vitamins and minerals with no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium, and low in calories.  When you marinated them, it increases the fat and the sodium content and this is what I found:

Kirkland Hy-Top Serving Size 2 pieces 2 pieces Calories 27 15 Total Fat 2g 1g Sodium 105 mg 220 mg