Volkswagen’s Best-Selling Product: The Currywurst Sausage
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As stereotypical as it may sound, Germany’s biggest car manufacturer’s best-selling part is in fact a sausage.
Original Part No. 199 398 500 A isn’t a screw, bearing, plate or cable but instead, a German pork sausage called the currywurst. Volkswagen produces more currywursts than they do cars and even makes its own ketchup to accompany it (Part No. 199 398 500 B).
The sausages are made at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg factory where pork from nearby farms is sent three times a week. The currywurst is sold in supermarkets, football stadiums and to workers in Volkswagen’s canteens.
Volkswagen has been producing currywurst sausages for almost 50 years. The sausage was first made in 1973 and was initially a combination of both pork and beef up until the 1990s.
However, in 2021, Volkswagen announced that they were going to stop manufacturing its famous pork product. The change occurs as the carmaker attempts to cut down on the emissions produced by meat production.
VW CEO, Herbert Diess, wants to rid Volkswagen of all factory-farmed meat by 2025. Vegetarian and vegan options have already begun making their way onto menus across factory canteens, including a plant-based currywurst that was first introduced in 2010.
The decision hasn’t gone down well with everyone though. Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schroder bemoaned the decision when he took to LinkedIn to write: “A vegetarian diet is good, and I do it myself in phases. But basically no currywurst? No!”