Custom cakes and party platters from Costco are available for same-day delivery for the first time, accessible through both the Instacart marketplace and sameday.costco.com. The launch extends a nine-year technology partnership and marks the first time Costco's perimeter departments — historically warehouse-only experiences — are fully wired into online fulfillment.
What's on the Menu
The new offering covers custom sheet cakes and 10-inch round cakes that can be personalized online and ordered in advance, plus ready-made party platters including sandwich trays, shrimp trays, and fruit platters. Orders flow from the consumer directly into Costco's warehouse bakery and deli teams via FoodStorm, Instacart's end-to-end order management system built for grocery perimeter departments. That direct integration is the operational unlock — previously, made-to-order bakery and deli items couldn't be reliably routed through a digital fulfillment channel.
For convenience operators and foodservice observers, the move underscores a broader industry trend: the grocery perimeter — historically a walk-in, point-of-purchase category — is becoming a same-day e-commerce category. As c-stores invest in foodservice programs ranging from roller grill upgrades to full commissary partnerships, the pressure from big-box delivery on prepared and custom food occasions is worth tracking. Costco's warehouse bakery already competes on scale and price for bulk celebration orders; nationwide delivery elevates that competitive position significantly.
Partnership Context
Costco and Instacart have operated under a formal delivery agreement since 2017. Since then, the partnership has expanded to Costco's same-day e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, Spain, and France — all powered by Instacart's Storefront Pro technology. Additional features layered in over time include EBT SNAP payment acceptance, alcohol delivery, a monthly $10 credit for Executive Members on eligible orders, and access to Costco Business Centre locations in Canada.
"We're proud to bring Costco's beloved made-to-order bakery and deli to sameday.costco.com and the Instacart marketplace," said Ryan Hamburger, Chief Commercial Officer at Instacart. The comment signals that perimeter-department digitization is a deliberate platform strategy for Instacart, not a one-off SKU addition.
For c-store operators watching the loyalty and digital ordering space, the Costco-Instacart model illustrates what frictionless advance ordering for high-ticket, customized food items can look like at scale. As convenience retailers push further into birthday cakes, party subs, and catering-adjacent categories, the tech infrastructure required to handle made-to-order items online — routing, lead times, production queuing — is the same problem FoodStorm was built to solve in the grocery channel.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
