The Real Reason Costco Just Stopped Selling Palmetto Cheese

You've probably seen containers of Palmetto Cheese in your local grocery store. It's a clear container with a bright orange, red, or green lid depending on the flavor. It also displays the palm tree and crescent from the South Carolina state flag along with a black and white photo of a Black woman on the lid. While this pimento cheese company has been sold by Costco, the big-box retailer just announced that it will no longer carry the brand.

The announcement came three weeks after the owner of the cheese company posted to Facebook calling Black Lives Matter a "terror organization," according to Myrtle Beach Online. However, the owner, Brian Henry, responded to Costco's decision with positivity. "Costco rotates items in and out during the course of the year," he said in a statement. "They will occasionally add and drop products as a matter of normal business. Costco has been a valued partner for nearly a decade, and we remain optimistic that Palmetto Cheese will be back on their shelves in the not too distant future."

While Henry's hopes appear to be high as he attempts to make amends by starting a $2,500 scholarship at his town's technical college, Costco does not appear to have a reorder planned anytime soon. According to the Post and Courier, Costco posted a sign under a box of Palmetto Cheese containers that said the items were discontinued and would not be reordered. The sign added that the products would be removed from 120 Costco locations throughout the United States. 

Henry, who is also the mayor of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, made a case for his employees who would be hurt by a threatened boycott of their product. Calls for his mayoral resignation continue, too. He also deflected comments made about the packaging of the products by explaining the photo is of Vertrella Brown, the former cook at the Sea View Inn on Pawleys Island, which Henry's family owns. Henry said the packaging was already being redesigned and that new labels would hit shelves in October, according to Myrtle Beach Online.