• I compared premade frozen beef patties from Wegmans, Costco, and Whole Foods to find the best one.
• I thought the patties from Wegmans were a bit too greasy.
• I loved the burger patties from Whole Foods because they were full of great flavor.

When it comes to summer cooking, I always like to have frozen burger patties on hand. They're a quick and convenient meal I can make whenever the mood strikes. 

To find out which supermarket chain carries the best frozen burgers, I compared options from Wegmans, Costco, and Whole Foods.

Here's how the frozen burger patties stacked up, from worst to best.

Wegmans' Angus beef burgers looked a little different than the other patties.

At $15 for six ⅓-pound patties, this option was more expensive than many of Wegmans' fresh burger options.

The packaging on Wegmans' seasoned Angus beef burgers suggested cooking them frozen, so I separated a patty from the stack and cooked it on a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.

The juice didn't pool up on the top of the burger patty while I cooked it, and it kept an even shape and puffed up to the perfect size. However, I thought the seared outer layer took on an oddly orange hue.

I also tried thawing another Wegmans burger before cooking it, and this patty was noticeably grayer than the others I tried. However, I wasn't worried because color isn't always an indicator of freshness.

These burgers were a little too greasy and spongy for me.

When I bit into the Wegmans burger, there was an enormous explosion of greasy juice. However, this could've been because I let them sit for a little bit before eating them.

I thought these patties were a little on the salty side, but to be fair, they were pre-seasoned with sea salt. They stayed moist, but seemed a bit greasy, even by burger standards. I also thought they had a spongy texture.

I'd eat one again if someone served it to me, but I'll skip them next time I'm at Wegmans.

I was curious to see what the Kirkland Signature Angus ground-chuck and beef patties would be like.

At $28 for 18 patties — each weighing ⅓ pound — Costco's house brand represents the best deal for frozen patties of the three stores. 

The packaging suggested cooking these patties frozen, but I tried cooking them both thawed and frozen.

I found it very easy to overcook them, especially when I started with a thawed burger. These patties were large in circumference but thin, so they cooked faster than I expected. The first three came out fully well done when I was aiming for a medium temperature.

Still, they took on a nice brown crustiness when seared on the skillet and maintained a decent size.

I didn't think the Kirkland Signature patties had a ton of flavor.

Unfortunately, I didn't think these burgers tasted like much. They were a bit juicy when I cooked them to medium, but didn't offer much flavor.

That said, when I garnished them with cheese, ketchup, and the like, they were good. If I served them at a barbecue, no one would ever complain.

I preferred them to some other frozen burgers I've tried in the past, and due to the cost and convenience, I could imagine myself picking up a package of these during barbecue season. 

The Whole Foods organic grass-fed beef burgers were smaller than the other patties.

The Whole Foods burger patties were the most expensive of the three, at $8.50 for four ¼-pound patties. They were slightly more costly per pound than Wegmans' and the only organic beef option among the three I tried. They were also smaller than the other patties.

The box I got was frozen solid, and the burgers were pressed so tightly in their packaging that it was impossible to separate them without at least partially thawing them first. 

Unlike the other two brands, the box for the Whole Foods burgers suggested thawing these patties before cooking.

The small patties cooked very fast. They were so thin that, at times, I wound up with dried-out edges even when the center of the burger was still juicy. They shrunk in the pan and didn't look especially appealing. 

The Whole Foods burger was my favorite.

In my opinion, these patties tasted distinctly better than the other two options. There was a rich, meaty, almost gamey flavor that tasted as much like skirt steak as ground beef. Each patty also had a nice, crusty texture from the skillet.

When I tried all three burgers side-by-side, completely unadorned, this was the only one I finished.

Once I run out of the remaining Kirkland Signature burgers in my freezer, I'll pick up the Whole Foods patties to cover the rest of the summer.

This story was originally published on June 16, 2024 and most recently updated on May 23, 2025.

• The Defense Information Systems Agency is facing a 10% cut to its workforce, its director has said.
• DISA, the Pentagon's tech arm, provides the military with IT and telecommunication resources.
• Its director said it was an "opportunity to ruthlessly realign."

The Defense Information Systems Agency, the Pentagon's IT arm, is facing a 10% cut to its workforce, its director told lawmakers this week.

Speaking to senators in Washington on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton said DISA was set to lose around one tenth of its staff but that that could be a good thing for the agency.

"It's giving us an opportunity to ruthlessly realign and optimize how we are addressing what is an evolving mission," he said. "We are doing a realignment and we're going back to the department to ask for what we refer to as a surgical rehiring. We need to hire the right people back into the right positions to then lead us forward."

DISA currently has around 20,000 employees — including about 6,800 civilians and more than 10,000 contractors, Stanton said.

The cuts come as part of a wider realignment in the Department of Defense.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in April that the DoD would be doing away with billions of dollars worth of IT and consulting contracts, including some with companies such as Accenture and Deloitte.

"These terminations represent $5.1 billion in wasteful spending at the Department, and nearly $4 billion in estimated savings," Hegseth said in a memo.

But Stanton assured that the cuts at DISA were being conducted in a strategic manner.

"Our contracts are aligned to the highly technical IT and cybersecurity workforce. They're not consulting contracts. These are individuals that are putting hands on keyboard, that are running fibreoptic cables, that are performing server maintenance in a global footprint," he said, adding that DISA's contracts were "healthy" and "in a good spot."

It comes after the Defense Department announced plans in February to reduce its civilian workforce by 5 to 8% in an effort to "to produce efficiencies and refocus the Department on the President's priorities and restoring readiness in the force."

The DOD employs more than 900,000 civilians around the world, in jobs ranging from engineering and tech to finance and legal.

Efforts to reduce its workforce come as part of the wider government cuts pushed by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.

The Elon Musk-linked agency has been tasked with maximising efficiency and productivity across the government under Trump's new administration, and it has carried out waves of controversial layoffs in pursuit of its goal.

• Steve Madden says Trump's tariffs won't achieve his desired outcomes.
• Tariffs aim to reduce trade deficits and boost US manufacturing, Trump said.
• Madden argues the US benefits from trade with China, including "better jobs" than working in a factory.

Shoe boss Steve Madden says Donald Trump's tariffs won't pan out the way his administration hopes.

When Trump announced his tariff plans in April, he argued that big trade deficits weakened US manufacturing and made supply chains too dependent on other countries.

As a result, imported products are getting more expensive, and you can "thank your government for that," Madden, the cofounder of his eponymous shoe brand, told "The Cutting Room Floor" podcast host Omondi on Wednesday.

"They fundamentally do not understand what they're doing," Madden said when asked about tariffs.

The notion that the US has lost manufacturing jobs to China is true, Madden said. However, he said, Americans have picked up "many better jobs as a result of our relationship with China."

He points to the iPhone, now the target of an "at least 25%" tariff directed at only Apple. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that he expects iPhones sold in the US to be "manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else."

"The iPhone being made in China — the success that that has created — the commerce," Madden said. "There's probably hundreds of thousands of people working for Apple today in America as a result of them making those phones in China."

The US has evolved into a "society that doesn't want to work in a factory making fucking socks," especially when jobs in retail, marketing, social media, and more exist, he said.

It's a concept that Madden says wealthy businessmen who "never made anything" wouldn't understand, and that's the problem.

"The Trump administration is deploying a multi-faceted approach of tariffs, rapid deregulation, domestic energy production, and tax cuts to reshore critical manufacturing and restore American Greatness," White House spokesman Kush Desai told Business Insider in a statement.

Representatives for the Steve Madden brand didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by BI.

The titans of retail are feeling the effects of Trump's tariffs. As Apple examines where to produce its US iPhones, Walmart warned that its prices will be increasing as a result of the tariffs. Best Buy, Target, and more have told consumers to expect to see products get more expensive.

"We are the people who create commerce — the Apples, the Steve Maddens, the UGGs, the Ralph Laurens — we create the economy, and they're destroying it," Madden said.