Could Butter Alone Pay for a Warehouse Club Card? A WRAL Check Gives North Carolinians the Math
Holiday baking means extra butter in your cart.
A Raleigh TV station compared Harris Teeter with three warehouse clubs. Harris Teeter cost more on butter, but chicken and milk were close.
Here’s how much butter you’d need to buy to cover a club membership, and whether the switch pays off for North Carolina shoppers.
Where These Prices Come From
WRAL’s consumer team priced nine grocery items, butter among them, at Costco, Sam’s Club, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Harris Teeter.
It collected prices from February 18 through February 24, 2026, and published the results on February 25.
It compared each store’s own brands, such as Kirkland Signature at Costco and Member’s Mark at Sam’s Club.
It left out outside brands.
The butter came in 4-ounce sticks, priced by the pound.
WRAL didn’t say whether Harris Teeter’s prices were card prices.
So these figures are one week of prices at the stores checked.
They’re not a statewide average.
Prices change, so check your store’s tags against these numbers before you buy a card.
Butter Price Gap
Harris Teeter’s butter cost $3.69 a pound in WRAL’s check. That was the only price above $2.13.
Sam’s Club charged $2.11, BJ’s $2.13 and Costco $2.108, which rounds to about $2.11.
Costco and Sam’s Club tied.
Your pound at Harris Teeter would have cost $1.58 more than at Sam’s Club.
That’s about 75% more.
Costco’s $2.108 put the gap at about $1.58 too.
Against BJ’s at $2.13, the gap was $1.56.
A 4-ounce stick came to about 92 cents at Harris Teeter and 53 cents at Sam’s Club.
Two sticks, half a pound, cost about $1.85 at Harris Teeter and $1.06 at Sam’s Club.
If you buy a pound a month, the gap comes to about $19 a year.
U.S. Butter Average
A pound of Harris Teeter butter at $3.69 sat 62 cents under the $4.31 U.S. average for stick butter in February 2026.
That average comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It covers regular stick butter, organic and non-organic.
WRAL priced only store brands, so the two figures may not be a like-for-like match for what you buy.
The clubs’ $2.11 pound sat about $2.20 under the U.S. average.
The U.S. average was $4.83 in August 2025, $3.82 in June 2026 and $4.02 in August 2026.
Your store’s tag may sit well away from the numbers in the February check.
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Club Fees
Harris Teeter butter can't pay for your Sam's Club card alone.
At a $1.58 gap, you'd need about 38 pounds to cover the $60 fee.
BJ's takes about 38 pounds too for its $60 fee. Costco takes about 41 for its $65 fee.
Americans ate 6.8 pounds of butter per person in 2024, an all-time high, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
At a $1.58 gap, 6.8 pounds saves you about $11 a year.
If you bake or cook with butter often, 38 pounds still works out to more than three pounds a month for a year.
Sam's Club lists a $60 Club membership and a $120 Plus tier on its join page.
Sam's Club raised those fees from $50 and $110 on May 1, 2026.
WRAL's February list showed the old amounts.
Costco's Gold Star membership costs $65 a year. The list put BJ's at $60.
A Sam's Club Plus card at $120 takes about 76 pounds of butter.
Costco's $135 Executive tier takes about 85.
Harris Teeter says its rewards membership is free.
Membership Math
Butter wasn't the only item WRAL priced higher at Harris Teeter than at the clubs.
Ground Colombian coffee cost $12.30 a pound at Harris Teeter.
It was $6.79 at Sam's Club, $7.33 at Costco and $7.40 at BJ's.
Harris Teeter's pound cost $5.51 more than Sam's Club's. That was the widest dollar gap among the five items in this article.
That's about 81% more.
A dozen cage-free eggs cost $3.99 at Harris Teeter, $2.27 at Sam's Club and $2.30 at Costco.
BJ's sold 18 eggs for $4.29, which works out to about $2.86 a dozen.
A dozen at Sam's Club cost $1.72 less than a dozen at Harris Teeter.
The basket below assumes you'd otherwise buy butter, coffee and cage-free eggs at Harris Teeter.
It covers only those three items, so the rest of your list could move the numbers either way.
What the Harris Teeter Basket Adds Up To
One pound of butter, one pound of coffee and one dozen cage-free eggs add up to $19.98 at Harris Teeter's prices in WRAL's check, by our math.
The same three items add up to $11.17 at Sam's Club and $11.74 at Costco.
Buy that basket at Sam's Club instead of Harris Teeter, and you'd pay $8.81 less each time.
At Sam's Club, your $60 fee is covered on your seventh basket. Buy that basket once a week, and that's about seven weeks.
At Costco, the gap is $8.24, so your $65 fee is covered on your eighth basket.
Where Harris Teeter Matched the Clubs
Harris Teeter's chicken and milk prices sat much closer to the clubs' than its butter did in WRAL's check.
Chicken cost $2.99 a pound at Harris Teeter and Costco, and $2.98 at Sam's Club.
At BJ's, your chicken would cost $2.49 a pound, 50 cents less than at Harris Teeter, or about 17% less.
Harris Teeter's whole milk cost $2.99 a gallon, below BJ's at $3.01 and Sam's Club at $3.44.
Only Costco's milk cost less than Harris Teeter's, at $2.43 a gallon, about 19% under.
At Sam's Club, you'd have paid $3.44 a gallon for milk, the highest price of the four.
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