If you have a hankering for frosted baked goods and don't feel like turning on an oven,
one way to get the right-sized cake is to head over to the bakery at your nearest Walmart
or Costco. But it turns out you might not be getting exactly what you thought from those
fresh bakeries. In a new TikTok video, a big secret is revealed, but in a double twist,
it looks like this is something that many might already have guessed.
The video goes behind the scenes to show that Walmart's cookies, cakes, and pastries come
frozen and already decorated — and aren't as fresh as people think.The video ends by
encouraging viewers to go to Publix instead, where they're known for their baked goods.
The TikToker, an ex-Walmart employee named Jeremy, posted the video on August 3. In another
TikTok video, Jeremy let viewers know August 8 was his last day on the job. Jeremy didn't
respond to commenters asking whether he had been fired.
While big surprises can certainly be revealed when going behind-the-scenes at a restaurant
or grocery store, this doesn't seem to be the case with Walmart's frozen baked goods.
One TikTok user commented on the video saying:
"You're acting like we didn't know this. This is how most stores' bakeries are. Nothing
new."
And for the most part, people don't seem to mind that Walmart's products aren't freshly
baked in the store, and they said they still enjoy the taste of the cakes, cookies, and
more. Another TikTok user wrote,
"That's fine and tell whoever makes them DON'T CHANGE THE RECIPE."
Several commenters also pointed out that while the TikTok video might imply that Publix's
cakes are fresh, they say that the baked goods there are frozen, too. Ultimately, it seemed
that this wasn't a shock to many customers, and people will still head to a large chain
grocery store for quality cakes at a low price.
Although fresh bakery goods are always delicious, some frozen products really aren't all that
bad, and it looks like Walmart's baked items fall into this category, although of course
that's up to personal opinion.
"Mmmm"
And to be fair, Walmart does customize its cakes in-store. According to some employees
who shared what it's like to work in a Walmart bakery, they did in fact note they have done
some decorating. Jeremy's claim that all of Walmart's cakes come into the store pre-decorated
and frozen might be true, but he failed to mention that Walmart accepts custom orders
on cakes.
In one part of Jeremy's TikTok video, Jeremy pans across an empty back room of the bakery
with text added over the image that says "Literally no one works back here." This could be misleading.
Walmart stores aren't open 24 hours quite yet, but they recently moved their pandemic
opening time one hour earlier, to 6 a.m., according to USA Today. Who knows? The empty
bakery could have been filmed at 6:05 a.m., before workers got busy. As one commenter
on TikTok noted,
"Walmart cakes are iced and decorated by real-life people in store too. Y'all are reaching. Publix
is no better than Walmart."
Walmart's website shows that their cakes are in fact highly customizable. Customers step
through nine options online to fashion their ideal cake for any occasion. They start by
choosing a size. Then customers select from among four cake flavors, their preferred icing
color, and whether they want fancy shell borders.
While you might not find anybody actually baking in Walmart's in-store bakeries, we
should give a special nod to Costco in this regard. A Costco employee dished on Reddit
a few years ago about what goes in the oven at their workplace, and Costco's bakery looks
pretty good next to Walmart and Publix. While bagels, baguettes, croissants, and cookies
come in frozen and just get a warm-up in the oven, Costco's popular cakes are whipped up
inside the store — although employees use a pre-made mix. Many of Costco's breads and
some of the pies are even made from scratch. Now that sounds delicious.
The downside of the Costco bakery? The bulk-item
warehouse chain isn't as tech-savvy as Walmart — at least when it comes to cakes. You can't
order a custom cake on the website. You need to walk into the store and fill out your cake
order with pencil and paper, like an animal.
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