The Ultimate Costco Value Investigation: $4.99 Rotisserie Chicken or the $1.50 Hot Dog Combo?

Old Jewish Men put New Balance on the ground to break down calories, price, weight and more.

Here at the OJM Value Desk we pride ourselves on being thorough (none of us have girlfriends). Just because something is inexpensive doesn’t mean it’s good value, but the opposite is also true: just because something is expensive doesn’t mean it’s worth a lot.

Price is not an indicator of quality. That said, Costco is famous for selling both a $4.99 rotisserie chicken and the $1.50 hot dog combo deal (that includes a beverage).

Obviously the chicken is the bigger meal, but is it the better value? 

We put New Balance shoes on the ground in order to put the debate to rest. Here’s a chart with everything you need to know to maximize your next trip to Costco. 

The Hot Dog

The $1.50 quarter pound hot dog and 20 oz refillable drink has been the same price since 1984. Why? Because it gets people in the door. The odds are if you come for a hot dog, you’ll probably end up buying a pack of socks too. Eh?

However, if you buy only the hot dog it’s a great deal for us and a terrible deal for them. Little known fact: the hot dog used to be a Hebrew National, but in 2011 Costco exchanged it for a house brand Kirkland dog with a sesame bun. Call it treif-flation, but at least it’s all beef. 

We took the dog back to the OJM Lab to verify the weight (4 oz confirmed): 

The plain dog works out to be $5.85 per pound of “meat”. The total hot dog weighs 6.4 oz with the bun, which equals 570 calories (with bread) and 380 without. 

Bottom line: The hot dog is 380 calories per dollar for the complete sandwich and 253 calories per dollar for the meat. 

Including water and seltzer, there are ten drink options included in the combination deal:

The max-calorie beverage is Tropicana Fruit Punch (280 calories). Customers who select fruit punch (without ice) will consume 850 calories total with the hot dog (not including refills). This boosts our total meal calories to a robust 566.7 calories per dollar. Not bad. 

The Rotisserie

Costco’s abnormally sized rotisserie chickens are supposed to weigh 3 lbs and are reported to be a loss leader (similar to the hot dog, Costco uses them strategically to attract customers).

The Costco chicken has been $4.99 since 2009, which is half the price of a much smaller, non-organic Whole Foods rotisserie chicken.  

Our OJM handlers grabbed the best looking chicken available (always go by the quality of the legs — it’s hard to identify significant breast differentiation) and went straight to checkout.

Back in the lab, we let some of the excess chicken juice drip off the value subject before completing the full analysis. After drainage, the chicken weighed 4 lbs and 2 oz, significantly more than the 3 lb advertised sale size. Bonus value?

After the weigh in we fully deboned the chicken to examine the goods. Fully deboned, the chicken weighed 2 lbs and 9.4 oz: 

Without bones, this works out to $1.93 per pound of chicken meat. How’s that for cheap?

There is no nutrition info to be found in the store, but online sources claim that the chicken is 140 calories per 100 grams, which equals roughly 1643 calories or 329.3 calories per dollar. 

Results

You may be asking yourself. What's the point of this nonsense? Who has time for this? God, I need a girlfriend.

Regardless, what does one do with all of this semi-valuable information? 

Here at OJM we like meat and value and won’t be distracted by flashy things like hot dog buns and free drinks, unlimited refills or not. 

When it comes to pure value, Costco’s rotisserie chicken nets approximately 2.5 lbs of chicken, while the hot dog only offers a quarter pound of beef.

This amounts to two bucks per pound of chicken and six bucks per pound of dog – 330 cals per dollar for the chicken and 250 for the hot dog.

Any questions?