Despite the economic disarray, Costco Wholesale’s CFO, Richard Galanti, recently announced the company’s signature $1.50 hot dog and soda combo deal will not be going anywhere anytime soon. In a recent presentation, CFO Richard Galanti told people that there are no plans to raise the price of the combo meal despite price hikes on other items on the menu. “We really don’t look at it that way,” said Galanti when asked how Costco plans to please it’s customers, per MarketWatch. “I think the thing I mentioned earlier about there [being] some businesses that are doing well with margin, like [the] gas business, [in] a smaller way—in the travel business, those things help us be more aggressive in other areas, or, as you mentioned, hold the price on the hot dog and the soda a little longer—forever.”
The strict price of the hot dog and soda combo has been in effect since the 1980s, and there are no plans to ever change it. In 2018 it was even reported that the company’s co-founder Jim Sinegal once threatened to kill CEO if he ever raised the price of the combo. As a result of this altercation, Costco decided to build its own hot dog-manufacturing facility in Los Angeles to keep costs down.