Homesick Americans living in the UK should head to Costco for snacks

• Costco sells some American brands and products that aren't commonly available in the UK.
• These include American classics like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Cheetos.
• But you could also buy huge packs of British favorites, like baked beans and tea bags.

I recently went to Costco for the first time, and was shocked to see how many US brands were on sale at the London branch I visited.

While products like Oreos, Coca-Cola, and Ben & Jerry's are widely sold across the world, it can be hard to find Kraft Mac & Cheese, Skippy peanut butter, and Cheetos in the UK, for example. But Costco sold them.

Costco is a predominantly American chain. As of September, the discount retailer had 591 in the US and Puerto Rico and 107 in Canada, with less than 200 in its other markets, including just 29 stores in the UK.

Though Costco has adapted its product assortment to the UK market, its UK and US stores are very similar and the aisles of the London store I visited showed a strong American influence.

I definitely saw a bigger range of US brands than I'm used to seeing at British retailers like Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Asda. Some of their stores have small sections dedicated solely to American food, which sell harder-to-find products, like Twinkies and Pop-Tarts - but generally at dramatically hiked-up prices.

Costco is an American snack haven

Costco sells a huge range of American snacks and candy in particular, perhaps because some of these items are easily recognizable from popular culture like TV shows and films. Videos of people trying American snacks and candy for the first time are also common on YouTube and TikTok.

Candy brands I saw at Costco included Red Vines licorice, Mike and Ike candy, and Welch's Fruit Snacks. The latter cost £16.78 (about $20) for a box of 80 individual portion-sized bags at the store I visited.

Snacks on sale at Costco include pretzels from the San Francisco Pretzel Company, popcorn from Angie's Boomchickapop, lentil chips from the Daily Crave, and Krusteaz's instant pancake mix.

Costco's website charges £8.99 (about $11) for what it says is enough of the Krusteaz mix to make up to 240 four-inch pancakes, which is only $1 more than its US website charges.

I also saw Smucker's Goober spread, San Francisco Bay Coffee, and Hershey's chocolate syrup.

There were some cereals made by American candy brands, too, like Oreo O's and Reese's Puffs. While I have seen these on sale in the UK before, they're usually significantly more expensive than other brands. Costco generally charged a bit less, but you had to buy them in two-box packs.

Some of the US products cost considerably more in the UK than in the US, though. A five-pack of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner costs £11.19 (around $2.75 per box) on the UK website, whereas on its US website, Costco charges $18.99 for 18 boxes of around the same weight - or just over $1 per box.

Brits can still get their tea fix

There were, however, plenty of British products on sale, showing how it had adapted its assortment to UK shoppers.

I spotted a 480-bag pack of Yorkshire Tea - my favorite brand - as well as a 1,100-bag pack of Tetley Tea for £16.49 ($20.20) in-store.

And though Kraft-Heinz is an American company, Heinz Beanz are synonymous with British cuisine.

Regular-sized cans weigh in at 415 grams (14.6 ounce), but at Costco store in South Croydon, you could buy a pack of six 2.62-kilogram cans (nearly six pounds each) for £26.79 (about $33).

Like many supermarkets in the UK, Costco was keen to point out the local origins of some of its own-brand Kirkland Signature produce as consumers pay more attention to food miles and supporting domestic agriculture.

Costco's cheddar cheese was emblazoned with Union Jacks, while some pork products were labeled as "British pork." In Japan, in comparison, Costco labels some of its meats as USDA Choice.

The UK food court, like in the US, was ridiculously cheap, but the menu was much more limited and some items had been swapped out to suit British tastes, such as adding cottage pies made with Aberdeen Angus and baked potatoes with baked beans.