What Exactly Are The Ingredients In Costco's Food Court Hot Dog?
It's a cliché: You don't want to know what's in a hot dog. If you ask PETA, it's pig anuses and worms. If you believe urban legends, it's floor scraps from processing facilities. Should you give up your beloved Costco hot dogs for good?
While hot dogs can contain some decidedly suspect ingredients, they're not as bad as they used to be. That old rumor about floor scraps? It's from a 1906 novel. Food standards have improved a lot since then, and so have sausages. Hot dogs containing offal need to be labeled (watch out for dogs made with "variety meats" if you're not keen on eating organs). Quality varies by brand, too. And, despite their shockingly low $1.50 price tag, Costco hot dogs are made from high-quality meat. The hot dogs are made from USDA choice beef, the second-highest grade.
It's worth noting that, while the retailer advertises its hot dogs as 100% beef, this isn't the only ingredient. 100% beef just means that beef is the only meat. The dogs also contain sugar, spices like garlic and paprika, preservatives like sodium lactate and sodium diacetate, and sodium nitrite, which helps prevent bacterial growth and keeps the meat pink.
How Costco keeps its hot dogs cheap (without compromising on quality)
If Costco's famous members only food court hot dogs are made from fairly high-quality meat, how can the brand sell them for just $1.50? Well, the store would have to answer to the company's founder, who once threatened to kill a Costco executive for daring to suggest a price raise.
But the brand's hot dogs aren't so bad for business after all. Costco's hot dogs are a loss-leader, an item that a store sells at a loss to draw customers. It's also branding: the low prices make customers think that they're getting good deals elsewhere in the store.
Over the years, Costco has tweaked its hot dogs to keep the loss to a minimum. Originally, the store served Kosher, all-beef hot dogs made by Hebrew National. Costco then started producing hot dogs in-house after inflation pushed up prices. But, while Costco's in-house hot dogs beat Hebrew National in a blind taste test, the brand's dogs have one major drawback. Nowadays, the meat is no longer Kosher certified.