I’m a professional baker. I tried chocolate-chip cookies from Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and Safeway to find the best.

• I tried chocolate-chip cookies from the bakery section of Kroger, Safeway, Walmart, and Costco.
• As a pro baker, I had high expectations — but Safeway and Walmart didn’t impress me much. 
• Costco’s cookies were soft and not too sweet with lots of chocolate chunks. 

As a professional baker, I’ve probably made thousands of chocolate-chip cookies from scratch.

Chocolate-chip cookies were also one of the first things I learned to make as a kid, and I’ve since spent a lot of time refining my own recipes for different versions of the classic, from soft and chewy to crispy and lacy. 

So, of course, I have strong opinions on what makes a good chocolate-chip cookie.

I don’t like them overly sweet, which typically happens when there’s not enough bitter-but-balancing chocolate folded into the dough. Soft centers and crispy edges are ideal, but there are certainly a lot of differing viewpoints on cookie texture.

Although I usually make big batches of my own dough to store in the freezer for a rainy day, I also understand that when a craving hits, you want a store-bought option that will satisfy.

So, I tried chocolate-chip cookies from the bakery section at four national chains near me in Seattle — Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart. Here’s how they stacked up.