TikTok Is Not Surprised By This Walmart Bakery 'Truth'

If you need to feed a large group at a party and don't feel like baking, one way to get the right-sized cake is to head over to the bakery at your local Costco or nearest Walmart. There's always tips and tricks you should know at big bakeries like these (such as the secrets of Walmart's bakery that you'll wish you found out sooner). In a new TikTok video, another secret is revealed, but it looks like this is something that many might already have guessed.

The video from TikTok user @6igures 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. "Like, when are these cakes & stuff really made?" @6figures asks in his caption. 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 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. No surprise here.

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 — as the chain's website indicates. 

In one part of Jeremy's TikTok video, Jeremy pans across an empty back room of the bakery with text added over the image: "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? Jeremy could have filmed that empty bakery scene at 6:05 a.m., before workers got busy. As one commenter on Jeremy's 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 — anything from a full sheet (96 servings) to an eighth sheet (12 servings). Then customers select from among four cake flavors, their preferred icing color, and whether they want fancy shell borders. We don't know why Jeremy ended up leaving Walmart, but the company may have been able to boost his morale by training him on the icing.

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.

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. How rustic!