# Volkswagen enjoys surprise bestseller amid financial woes: the VW currywurst

Sausage-based snack and ‘power bar of the skilled factory worker’ is being bought in record numbers in Lower Saxony



Members of the VW production team eat currywurst during the daily morning tasting session at the Wolfsburg plant. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

[](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/05/volkswagen-currywurst)

The currywurst are all marked with their own official VW branding. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Volkswagen, long one of the most iconic brands in an economy that for decades was Europe’s powerhouse but , has had little else to celebrate this week.

The company’s annual report, released on Tuesday, showed net profit down 30.6% compared with the previous year owing to high production costs and decreased sales in China.

The 10-brand group, whose models include Audi, Seat and Skoda alongside VW, had a challenging 2024, marked by a  with German unions that ended with a deal in December to cut 35,000 jobs by 2030.

On Tuesday, the company’s finance chief, Arno Antlitz, said that “consistently reducing costs and increasing profitability” was VW’s goal, and that the company expected revenue this year to exceed the 2024 figure by “up to 5%”.

But VW also acknowledged that challenges remained “arising from an environment characterised by political uncertainty, increasing trade restrictions and geopolitical tensions”. This includes a lack of clarity over Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on manufacturers in the EU.

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