Volkswagen Originalteil Sausages

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/volkswagen-originalteil-sausages

by sohkamyung • 7 years ago

76 22 7 years ago

rkagerer• 7 years ago

What's the reliability rating on that part? Have there been any recalls? Is it RoHS compliant? Will the US charge me a 25% tariff on import? Can I lubricate with part 199-398-500-B?

trhway• 7 years ago

I wonder how they manage to detect when sausage is being eaten by a professional food taster/reviewer.

rdl• 7 years ago

What, to optimize emissions?

est313• 7 years ago

They do this to protect their brand. If you register for a brand, you must specify for which types of goods or services your brand should be valid. These types are categorized into so called nice classes [1], where each class has a number and covers a group of products. E.g. class 12 is for cars and class 29 is for meat products, including sausages. Your brand registration can include one or multiple nice classes, and different owners can own different nice classes for the same brand.

Volkswagen posesses a multitude of brands. First, one registered in 1956 [2] that's specific to cars, and another one registered in 1998 [3] that includes every single nice class not covered by the first brand registration.

Having a brand registered is not enough. You must actually place a product into the market, otherwise your government granted monopoly on the brand becomes invalid. They just don't want people to make Volkswagen sausages so they have to do their own.

[1] https://www.wipo.int/classifications/nice/en/

[2] https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/621252/...

[3] https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/register/3980018...

SlowRobotAhead2• 7 years ago

I’m not sure they are selling almost 7 million sausages a year just to protect their brand and their ability to make other food products if they so choose. If it was Porchse novelty turkey jerky I would agree, this seems like a real business and tradition for VW.

Gibbon1• 7 years ago

I think if an oddball division makes money and doesn't require much oversight by the parent company they just toodle along. Especially if the hassle of selling off the division isn't worth managements time.

nwellnhof• 7 years ago

categorized into so called nice classes

They're called Nice classes, named after the city of Nice (France).

est313• 7 years ago

Yeah, Nice is a proper name in this case. I got the capitalization wrong.

stiGGG• 7 years ago

Does this mean by selling these sausages they retain the right to all these entries in your third link? For example the last one „Vermietung von Datenverarbeitungsgeräten“. Someone could make a business leasing computers under the name Volkswagen if they wouldn’t make these wursts?

est313• 7 years ago

No, to my knowledge, each item sold only covers its Nice class it falls into. They don't just sell sausages, they also sell things from a large class of other things. There is an online shop: https://shops.volkswagen.com/de_DE/web/lifestyle

brianberns• 7 years ago

The finished product is shipped in packs of five to VW dealerships all over the country, who then gift it to customers after a successful sale.
In 2017, Volkswagen sold nearly 7 million sausages

Wait, so are they sold or gifted?

SlowRobotAhead2• 7 years ago

Also in the article... company cafeteria and grocery stores.

usrusr• 7 years ago

Wait, so are they sold or gifted?

Sold to the dealers perhaps? Not ruling out imprecise writing, but the dealers are franchise, not subsidiary, so I would expect them to not get their marketing materials for free.

baxtr• 7 years ago

Also little known: VW sells beer in Argentina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8vwXcB3-Cs

drewwwwww• 7 years ago

You can also get the sausages inside VW's too-weird-to-adequately-describe theme park/museum, the Autostadt[1], in Wolfsburg.

[1] https://www.autostadt.de/start

acqq• 7 years ago

And, related, Volkswagen also had its own insignificant but apparently funny for the readers "Ketchupgate":

https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/ketchupgate-vw-...

purplezooey• 7 years ago

No emissions cheat device is going to help the other passengers in the car after you eat a few of those...

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

Good for them. I bet it's fun to work at Volkswagen, any place that makes their own sausage and ketchup must have a great variety of jobs

jrjarrett• 7 years ago

Does the check engine light come on often with these?

Volkswagen Originalteil Sausages

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