Don't ever ask the Costco co-founder to raise the price of hot dogs
A resurfaced interaction between Costco’s co-founder and CEO has sent Twitter into hysterics and turned the co-founder into an icon. Current Costco president and CEO W. Craig Jelinek complained to Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal about the company losing money from their legendary hot dog meal special. As any real Costco enthusiast knows, the store’s deals aren’t limited to just the shopping aisles — the meal costs only $1.50. Costco hasn’t changed the price of the combo since 1984, when it was first introduced. “I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ He said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out,'” Jelinek said during a speech in 2018. Instead of changing the price, Costco simply built its own hot dog manufacturing plant in Los Angeles. The company reports that it sells more than 100 million hot dogs on average each year. “Now we are doing so much hot dog business that we’ve opened up another plant in Chicago,” Jelinek said
