“We’re right about 100 million right now.”īut in recent years, it has become even more difficult for Costco to keep its rotisserie chicken prices down. But rotisserie chickens have been a “very, very good business and very consistent growth for a long period of time,” he said. Jeff Lyons, senior vice president of fresh foods at Costco, who joined the company in 1990 as its first meat buyer, declined to say whether Costco still loses money selling them. “As prices changed dramatically and we saw the competition raising the price, it was a hot price,” Costco’s chief financial officer Richard Galanti said in 2014.Ĭostco was willing to sacrifice “$30 million, $40 million a year on gross margin by keeping it at $4.99,” Galanti said the following year. Even as competitors increased their rotisserie chickens to $5.99 in recent years, Costco held its price steady. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesĬostco is so determined to keep its rotisserie chickens at $4.99 that it’s been willing to lose money selling them in the past. The company sold more than 90 million rotisserie chickens last year. And there’s no guarantee it will work.Ĭostco's $4.99 birds. It’s one of the largest-scale tests of a store’s ability to become its own meat supplier. Retailers will be watching Costco’s plan closely. This is a big experiment not only for Costco, but the broader industry as well. Costco has even put its socially-conscious corporate reputation on the line, fending off local critics who have rallied against the Nebraska operation. Costco will control the production process from farm to store, making key decisions down to the grain chickens eat and the type of eggs hatched. It’s a highly unusual move for one of the world’s largest retailers. For the past few years, it’s been recruiting farmers for this moment: The official opening of a sprawling, $450 million poultry complex of its very own in Nebraska. So Costco is willing to go to extreme lengths to keep its chickens at $4.99. They have their own Facebook page with nearly 13,000 followers. 91 million were sold last year, double the number from a decade earlier. The chickens have become almost a cult item. For Costco, the chickens are a lure, pulling customers into stores and getting them to browse the aisles, adding sometimes hundreds of dollars worth of items to their shopping carts before they pick up that bird. At the back of Costco’s stores, past the televisions, jewelry, jumbo-sized ketchup jugs and tubs of mixed nuts, is one of the retailer’s most prized items: The rotisserie chicken that costs just $4.99.Ĭheap Kirkland Signature rotisserie chickens aren’t only a quick way for families to get dinner on the table.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |