Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you to the 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Costco. I am Tony James, Chairman of the Board. Before we get started, I want to make a few other introductions. John Sullivan, our Corporate Secretary, will act as secretary for this meeting. Soleil Luke, acting as Inspector of Election, will be counting the ballots and reporting on the final vote. I will now introduce members of our terrific board of directors, all of whom are present on this webcast today.
Sue Decker, founder and CEO of her own exciting startup, Raftr, and formerly President of Yahoo!. Ken Denman, a partner in Sway Ventures and formerly CEO of Emotient, which was acquired by Apple. Helena Foulkes, our newest board member and former CEO of Hudson's Bay Company and Saks Fifth Avenue, and previously President of CVS Pharmacy. Richard Galanti, our stalwart CFO.
Sally Jewell, formerly Secretary of the Interior under President Obama and previously CEO of cult retailer REI. Jeff Raikes, founder of the Raikes Foundation, previously CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a former senior executive at Microsoft. John Stanton, chairman of the hometown Seattle Mariners and a pioneer of the wireless industry in America. Maggie Wilderotter, formerly CEO of Grand Reserve Inn and also formerly CEO of Frontier Communications.
Ron Vachris. Ron became our new CEO January one, after serving as president and COO for the last two years. Ron has been with the company for over 40 years, starting on the warehouse floor and rising rapidly through the ranks. Over his career, Ron has had major leadership positions on both the operations and merchandising sides of the company. He is the perfect choice to take over as CEO. Finally, Craig Jelinek.
Craig, who has led the company so well since 2012. I know Craig would not want me elaborating on the incredible job he has done, but I'm going to indulge myself and embarrass him anyway. When Craig took over, the company's net sales were $87 billion. Today, they are $238 billion. Profits have grown even faster, increasing more than 4x for an average annual growth rate of 13% over his 12 years as CEO. Of particular interest to the people on this webcast, our stock price back then was $83.
Today, it's about $685 per share. But it's not just in financial performance where Craig has shone. He opened China for us, built the e-commerce business, navigated COVID and the unprecedented disruptions of supply chains, guided us through societal anguish around diversity and inclusion. Throughout it all, he vigilantly protected Costco's unique culture and values. As he turns over the reins to Ron, our company consistently ranks among the most admired companies in America.
Craig, thank you. We all owe you a huge debt of gratitude. I also want to say a few words about Charlie Munger, our director of 26 years, who died a few short weeks ago. Charlie was one of the most revered figures in American business over the last 50 years. He joined Costco as a director in 1997 and was a passionate believer and defender of the company until his final days. Warren Buffett has said Costco loved, Charlie loved Costco more than he did Berkshire Hathaway, and I believe it. For us, Charlie was a guiding light, a source of truth who never compromised intellectual honesty, and a blunt voice of strength when we needed it.
He urged us to dream big and never doubt how special we were. He was a great colleague and a dear friend. I'm going to pause a moment here to remember Charlie, smile at his wonderful idiosyncrasies, and thank him from the bottom of my heart for all he did for this company. Okay, on to business. We're going to do the formal part of the meeting first. I hope to make that efficient and relatively brief. Then we will turn it over to Ron to give his presentation on the state of the company and open it up to your questions. The polls are open and will close approximately 30 seconds after the last item is presented. Only shareholders who held shares as of the record date for this meeting are entitled to vote.
If you have already voted your shares, there is no need to vote again unless you wish to change your vote. If you'd like to vote your shares or change your vote, you may do so anytime while the polls are open by following the instructions on your screen. The record date for the meeting was the close of business on November 10, 2023. Each shareholder of record on November 10 was mailed a Notice of Availability of Proxy Statement on or about December 7. The proxy statement was posted on our website on that date. Affidavits of the mailing and the posting of these materials will be attached to the minutes of this meeting. A complete list of the shareholders of record entitled to vote is available for your inspection through the link on your meeting page.
This list will be kept open for inspection during the entire meeting. To conduct business, we need a quorum, and a quorum for this meeting is a majority of the shares entitled to vote. The Inspector of Election has reported that we do indeed have a quorum today. I will now review the four items put to a shareholder vote and the preliminary results of voting. We'll close the polls very shortly, so please vote now if you have not already done so. Item one is the election of directors. All current board members have been re-nominated to serve again until the next annual meeting. I reviewed the nominees and each of their backgrounds in my introductory remarks. The vote shows that the nominees have all been re-elected with over 90% of the vote. Item two: ratifying the selection of KPMG as our auditor.
This item also passed with over 90% of the shares voting. Item three, an advisory vote to approve compensation of the company's executive officers. This item passed as well, again, with over 90% of the shares voting. The last item, item four. In addition, it's an item proposed by a shareholder, which concerns Costco's efforts to mitigate our carbon footprint. We'll now play prerecorded statements by the shareholder proposing this resolution, and a response from me explaining why we believe this proposal is not in the company's best interest. We respectfully request that you vote against this proposal.
Considering that the everyday operations of Costco are immensely dependent on fossil fuel-generated energy, it should be beyond safe to assume that it's in the best interest of the company and its shareholders not to religiously demonize fossil fuels and not to dogmatically adopt a decarbonization policy. Yet Costco has pledged its unwavering allegiance to decarbonization, specifically to reducing all Scope 1 and 2 emissions 100% by 2035, and Scope 3 emissions, which are laughably incalculable, 20% by 2030.
The company has adopted this company-destroying policy without making any serious effort to explain to shareholders the concrete reasons and evidence as to why such company-altering decisions are absolutely necessary to undertake, and without any serious effort to warn shareholders about the potential risks and drawbacks of doing so. There are many such risks to consider. First, that there's no scientific evidence that total decarbonization is possible even for a single individual, let alone a massive corporation like Costco.
Second, that it's currently not technologically or economically feasible to rely on anywhere near the same amount of energy from alternative energy sources like solar, wind, or hydro. Third, that this mass climate change hysteria, which the company participates in, generally has a negative impact on the affordability and availability of fossil fuels, thereby making everything more expensive for everyone, everywhere. Fourth, that any attempt at decarbonization is fruitless when the biggest polluters like China and India don't attempt to as well.
Fifth, that there are serious geopolitical consequences to participating in the movement that has made the U.S. more reliant on enemy nations for energy. And lastly, that the supposed science underpinning the climate change narrative is shaky at best. Those are just some of the many risks to consider, none of which the company has publicly weighed in its public decision to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions 100% by 2035, an effort that, if actually undertaken, would burn Costco to the ground faster than any fossil fuel can. The board's most basic fiduciary duty to shareholders is to not do that.
Good afternoon. This is Tony James, Chairman of the Board. Under the oversight of the Board of Directors and the Nominating and Governance Committee, the company has developed and implemented a comprehensive, yet measured approach to reducing carbon emissions of the company and its suppliers. This approach, reflected in the Climate Action Plan, balances the responsibility to help mitigate the harm from global warming with protecting the interests of the company's direct stakeholders, its members, its employees, its shareholders, and its suppliers. Our climate and energy-focused efforts in our operations, which are focused on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, create near and long-term business value through lower operating costs, cleaner energy supply to power our warehouses, more resilient infrastructure, and enhancement of our corporate brand to customers and employees.
Benefiting the environment does not hurt business or our profitability. Some of our successes in the last year include: increasing the deployment of energy-efficient lighting, heating, air conditioning, refrigeration to warehouses across the United States, growing our use of renewable diesel fuel by 15%, and increasing the share of clean energy powering our global operations by 110%. We seek to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 39% by 2030, not 100%, as the proponent states, and we are targeting getting to 100% clean energy by 2035. Regarding Scope 3 emissions, which are those generated by our suppliers and our customers, we're taking a pragmatic approach, which recognizes the imperative for improvement while being realistic about what we can expect to achieve.
We estimate that our plan will lead to a 20% reduction in our Scope 3 emissions intensity by 2030 from our baseline year of fiscal year 2020. We recognize that Costco alone cannot mitigate the negative effects of climate change, but our efforts are making important contributions while protecting our shareholders and other stakeholders. As a result, the board unanimously recommends that you vote against this proposal. We will now pause to allow for any additional votes.
Okay, the preliminary vote counts show that the shareholder proposal, item 4, failed to pass by a margin greater than 90%. The official business is now over. The polls are declared closed, and the inspector of election will tabulate the final votes, and the results will be reported in our 8-K, which will be filed shortly. As chair of the meeting, I now declare the official meeting adjourned.
Thank you. Next up is a fun video of media clips about your company over the last year, followed by a presentation by our CEO, Ron Vachris, on the year's highlights. Following his presentation, Ron will address questions and comments from shareholders. Please keep your questions and comments brief because we want everyone to get a chance to get theirs in. Others who have comments are free to address them in writing to the corporate secretary. Thank you all very much for joining us, and over to you, Ron.
[Video Narrator]
Good afternoon, and welcome to our 2024 annual meeting of shareholders. Let's start off by taking a look at expansion and the growth of the company. In fiscal year 2023, we began the year with 838 warehouses worldwide. We opened up 23 new buildings during the year, and we ended the year at 861. So far in fiscal 2024, we've opened 11 locations, and currently today have 872 buildings around the world. Taking a look at some of the locations we opened up over the last year, Queen Creek, Arizona, which is in the East Valley of the greater Phoenix metro, and our 18th Arizona location. We opened up Pudong, China, in March 2023. That's our 3rd China location and our 2nd in the Shanghai market.
Meiwa, Japan, opened up in April, and that's our 32nd location in Japan. Longmont, Colorado, northwest of the Denver market, is our 14th Colorado location that was opened up in May. We opened our 2nd unit in North Tulsa in May of this last year. It's 180,000 sq ft, and if you notice on the back of this building, we have built on what we call our MDOs, or our Market Delivery Operation. I'll show you the inside of one of those locations. We have shipments that come directly to this addition to the back of the warehouse, and we can operate this business under one roof. So it's helping take advantage of the footprint that we have around the country and blending in our e-commerce deliveries with our cash and carry business as we move forward.
In June, we opened up our 4th China location in Ningbo, China. In June, we also opened up in Gold Coast, Australia. This was our 15th Australia building. Gold Coast is on the east coast of Australia, north of Sydney. We opened Kadoma, Japan, in August of 2023, and that's our 33rd location. This is in the greater Osaka market. And then we opened up our Hangzhou location in China. That's our 3rd China opening in that fiscal year and our 5th operating now in China. St. John, Missouri, we opened our 24th U.S. business center. As you see, this facility was a repurposed building that was there. We moved in, cleaned it up, and turned it into a Costco Business Center. November, we kicked off the month with an opening in Northwest Toronto of a true infill.
This warehouse is right in the middle of 5 very high-volume Costco warehouses in the greater Toronto market. We opened our first location in Scarborough, Maine. Scarborough is south of Portland, and as you can see from the parking lot, started off very, very strong for us. Some additional openings throughout the year: Kyle, Texas, which is south of Austin, Buckeye, Arizona, being our 19th Arizona location that opened up. Georgetown, which is the north side of Austin, opened up.
Northeast Denver, or up by the airport, is our 15th Colorado building. Then North Canton, Ohio, also opened up this past year. We opened up in Clermont, Florida, Hendersonville, Tennessee, Stockbridge, Georgia, Newark, California, and Noblesville, Indiana, all also in the month of November. Bringing us up to date was Marysville, California, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and most recently, Shenzhen, China. That would make our 6th location in China.
Costco today, we're the third-largest global retailer. We're the 12th-largest in the Fortune 500, and we have a $291 billion market cap. Sales over the fiscal year, $238 billion. That's achieved through 126 million sq ft at an average of 147,000 sq ft per warehouse, and we have 316,000 outstanding employees worldwide.
Taking a look at our footprint around the world, we have 872 warehouses, as I spoke of, and this is the 14 regions where we do business. I'm not gonna go through each one of them, but as you can see, the U.S. has now achieved 600 locations, and we've pinnacled 100 locations in our Canadian market. Costco today, we have 72 million member households with 129 million cardholders.
We're very proud of the fact that we have achieved our historical high renewal rate worldwide at 90.5% this year, and we've collected $4.7 billion in membership fees in the last twelve months. Fiscal year 2023 sales were at $237.7 billion. Net income was $6.092 billion, compared to $5.8 billion in 2022, and our diluted earnings per share were $14.16, compared to $13.14 the year prior. We had a strong first quarter. Sales eclipsed $56.7 billion. Income was at $1.589 billion, compared to $1.364 billion last year, and with diluted earnings per share at $3.58, comparing to $3.07 the year prior. Looking at traffic, traffic continues to be very strong for the company.
As you would recall, during COVID in 2020, our members came in less frequently, had larger shops. That traffic built back nicely in 2021 and 2022, but we're very happy about how we continue to build on that growth. In 2023, we achieved 4.8% growth and a very strong first quarter at 4.7% traffic growth. Looking at some of the departments, apparel sales had a very strong year, up 9%. Addition of new vendors, new styles, and new footwear throughout the company. The jewelry category continues strong. 530,000 carats of diamonds sold, both online at Costco.com and in our warehouses over the past fiscal year. We continue to build back the wine business post-COVID. Last year, our beer, wine, and spirit business grew at over 4%.
Our produce continues to grow nicely, 9% growth last year, as we expand our sourcing to over 45 countries worldwide. A lot of newness and excitement in our bakeries. 19% growth in 2023, driving some great values and some real newness in that department. Meat and seafood, 2023 sales were up 7%, and our service deli had a very strong year, driven by our $4.99 rotisserie chicken. Over 137 million rotisserie chickens sold globally last year.
Taking a look at some merchandising highlights throughout the year, brands are an important thing for our members, and our buyers continuously work on bringing in new and exciting partnerships to Costco, be it with outdoor suppliers like Blackstone Grills, Solo Stove, apparel suppliers with Converse, Nike, or our furniture suppliers continue to grow with brands like Flexsteel.
So a lot of new excitement coming that you'll see throughout the Costco around the world. Looking at new member values this past year, when you purchase a tire at Costco, not only are you getting a great price on the tire, now with that membership, you're getting all the additional services included for free, and that's inclusive of the 5-year road hazard warranty, any rotations, balancing, inflation checks, and so forth.
All those services are included in your Costco membership that you pay for each year. Spend a minute on Kirkland Signature, the brand that we had built at Costco. The key attributes to Kirkland is that we control the quality and the value for our members. Our buyers have the ability to build or create a better item. We can use innovative packaging, clean ingredients, and have full traceability on the items with the Kirkland Signature brand.
We also strategically plan for our global supply in the future by developing items that are gonna continue to fill our needs for the upcoming years. We strive for a 20% value to the national brands, and most importantly, these items are continuously innovating and getting better and improving quality or value. Some of that excitement that drove the 19% growth in our bakery was a 4.5-pound peanut butter chocolate cream pie that sold for $19.99, or a very unique lemon meringue cheesecake that also sold for $19.99, with an extreme value to what you'd find out there in any other market. When we talk about continuous innovation, we look at key items that we've had, such as Kirkland Signature Toilet Paper, and we're launching a new ultra-soft, our best quality toilet paper yet, at $21.99, with a 27% value to our members.
Recently on the shelves has been the Kirkland Signature Spring Fresh Laundry Scent Beads at a 22% value as well. Not to leave the pets out when you talk about Kirkland Signature, we feel very good about the pet beds that we offer to our members, and we've also expanded our reach on Kirkland Signature logo apparel to now be inclusive of the dogs and cats out there as well. In our freezer areas, two new exciting items, the Kirkland Signature Chicken Breast Chunks, with a 22% value at $13.99, one of our top items in the freezer, and just most recently, our breakfast sandwich had launched with a 67% value to the brand. The sparkling category has been a real driver for the company, with the addition of the Prosecco items that you see on the screen.
Currently, we're rolling out our third in the family of the Kirkland Signature Pre-Mixed Mimosa. That's gonna sell for $7.99, with a 30% value to the brand, and we have very high hopes for this item in the future. Kirkland Signature Golf has been a great success for the company. We have our mainstay of our white golf ball that's on the floor and online at all times, and our buyers have now launched a three-piece yellow golf ball, selling at $27.99, a 75% value. This fall, we launched our Kirkland Signature Driver at $199 and our Kirkland Signature Iron Set. Both of these launched on costco.com and were sold out almost immediately. Extreme values on an extremely high-quality driver and iron set. We've offered a Kirkland Signature men's jean for some time.
It's done very well for us at a price of $17.99 and a 74% value. Our buyers felt confident that they reintroduced the ladies' Kirkland Signature jeans, and they're doing outstanding. You'll find these coming this summer to all of our buildings at $17.99 and a great value to what you'll find in the market. One of the big benefits of doing business globally is the opportunity to bring goods from abroad to the U.S. Unique items such as Korean corn dogs from Korea, tapas trays from Spain, or liqueurs from China. Our buyers are able to work with our international buyers and find the most unique items, best sellers, great quality, and bring those back to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as well. Costco Online, we're currently operating 8 regional websites, and here's where those are operating today.
Some of the benefits of e-commerce to our members is an expanded selection year-round. We are able to offer Treasure Hunt unique items in and out of the websites that we operate. Grocery Online continues to be a great driver for e-commerce post-COVID, and we have two offerings currently. We have the same-day delivery for the members that are closest to our warehouses, as well as a two-day delivery option for members that may be more remote. When we talk about Treasure Hunt, we're talking about exciting, unique, one-of-a-kind items, things that are unique to our members, such as the Michael Jordan autographed card that we sold for $24,000.
Currently on our site, we have the Mickey Mantle autographed rookie card for $249,000 or the Le Creuset cookware set, 157 pieces, that is so large, we actually deliver it to your home on a pallet. You may have heard about the gold excitement at Costco. Our buyers, through working with their suppliers, have found a way to bring value to our members on buying gold in a few different forms. We're able to sell a gold coin, or the gold bar has been the main driver, and most recently have added silver to the offering as well, both at Costco.com and in our warehouses as well.
One-of-a-kind jewelry continues to be a driver and an excitement factor for the websites, whether it be the 5-carat pear-shaped diamond solitaire at $259,000 or the 9-carat cushion-cut yellow diamond ring for $142,000. Our buyers are able to offer one-of-a-kind, unique pieces of jewelry to our members on a regular basis. Experiences have been very important to our members, and our buyers continue to find new ways to deliver value, like the Southwest Airlines cards, Topgolf new partnership, where you get a $100 gift card for $79.99, or our newest addition is the Disney e-gift card that can be either used in the parks or at Disney.com. A new addition to Costco.com is our buying guide or what we call Why Buy at Costco?
The purpose for this was to better explain to our members the true value of buying at Costco and all those additional benefits you get, be it installation and haul-away, direct delivery, extended warranty, or tech support. This is a great way for our members to understand more about the full value of buying at Costco. One of those examples is appliances bought at Costco.com, delivered through Costco Logistics.
When you look at a price of an appliance at Costco.com, it's an all-inclusive price. It includes delivery, installation, any parts required, haul-away, and second-year warranty. Compared to our competitors, those are usually found as separate costs as well, and that's where you see the real value of buying through Costco and Costco.com. Those values are achieved by using our own logistics company, Costco Logistics, to deliver the final mile to our members.
We purchased Costco Logistics in 2020 with the purpose of improving the value and the quality of experience our members receive in their homes. We have nationwide distribution and delivery network that reduces days to deliver. We've reduced the cost of delivery, which translates into lower prices for our members, and we've also expanded the big and bulky categories that we're able to sell online to our members as well.
Costco Logistics had a very successful year in 2023. We delivered 3.6 million deliveries to our members in that fiscal year. We currently operate 10 middle mile distribution centers, totaling over 10 million sq ft. We have 121 final mile delivery facilities, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
We have nine final mile facilities attached to our warehouses, like I showed you in North Tulsa, and we have 725 home delivery trucks delivering 6 days a week with an average of 3.5 days to deliver to our members after they purchase at Costco.com. Some of those key categories, as I've spoken to, have been appliances, consumer electronics, televisions, furniture and mattresses, lawn and garden, patio, exercise, and barbecues. So we continue to see expanded categories that we can now improve, not only the ability to bring great value to our member, but a great experience in delivery as well. Our mobile app has undergone a lot of work this last year, and I really encourage everybody, please go back and check it out. We've made quite a few improvements as mobile becomes one of our key drivers of traffic and sales at Costco.com.
Some of those features include a star rating prompt, a new inbox for communication with our members. We made some real significant same-day shopping improvements to the app, allowing navigation and easier shopping. We put some shop menu updates in place to also improve navigation, and we now have got a savings landing page with updates to that as well, so members can see the hottest deals at Costco.com at all times. We're not done. In 2024, we will move to a native app homepage on the site, and we will also be introducing a warehouse mode for app usage inside our warehouses. So stay tuned. We've got more great things coming to our mobile app. Costco Next, which is the Costco Marketplace, an expanded opportunity for our members to see value in brands that we partner with.
You get more of what you want with exclusive member-only values on an expanded selection of goods curated by our buyers, directly from brands that we trust. So you can go onto CostcoNext.com, or there's a link out through Costco.com itself. Along with the improvements that we've made to the app, we've also made improvements to the Costco Next pages, including a search bar, now single sign-on, and now we're also offering subscriptions through Costco Next on consistent deliveries of items that you'd like. We continue to partner with new, exciting suppliers such as ZLINE Appliances, Jupiter Bikes, Fortessa Dishware, and we've even moved our coupon program from kiosk in the warehouse to Costco Next to better serve our members with shopping ability and ease of delivery and so forth. We currently operate 30 business centers in North America, 24 in the U.S., and 6 in Canada.
These offer both walk-in and delivery for our business members. We're seeing great growth in this business, as well as being used as the fulfillment centers for our grocery online business as well. Looking at some of the key departments, Pharmacy, 60 million prescriptions filled globally in fiscal year 2023. In Optical, over 9 million pairs of glasses were sold in fiscal 2023. And our hearing aid business continues to grow extremely strong at 818,000 units sold globally in fiscal year 2023. We came up a little short on our 200 million hot dog and soda combo sold last year, but I can assure you, we're all gonna work hard that we will achieve that number this year. In the Gasoline business, we grew great market share this past year, with the gallons sold through Costco growing at over 7%.
11 million tires sold globally in this past fiscal year as well. With the new values to our members, we feel this will continue to be a big growth driver for the company. Moving to sustainability, I would encourage everybody to go to Costco.com to take a look at our new sustainability commitment that's been launched. In December, this was put out to our members and the community. I feel our people have done a great job.
It's much more easily navigated, and it really gives you a good sight on what our commitments are and the progress we're making with sustainability around the world. Focusing on the four pillars starts with people and communities, supporting the people impacted by our business. Operations, maintaining efficiencies in an environmentally responsible manner. Merchandising, strategically sourcing merchandise in a sustainable manner.
Of course, our Climate Action Plan, doing our part to address climate change and its impacts. Moving to employees, 316,000 employees worldwide, premium benefits with industry-leading compensation at $29 an hour, average wage in the U.S., and $32+ per hour for 10-year service clerks in the U.S. as well. Benefits for full- and part-time employees with 94% eligibility in the U.S., and 97% of those eligible employees are enrolled in our benefit program. We have a stable workforce. 35% of our U.S. employees have greater than 10 years of service, with very low turnover after one year of 8%. Moving to communities, 1% of our pre-tax profit is donated, over $75 million in 2023. We work with organizations such as United Way, The Red Cross, and Children's Hospital.
We also have made a $25 million investment to the Black Economic Development Fund. And Feeding America is also a key partner of ours, where we've made $7 million in cash grants and 117 million pounds of food and other products donated to that organization. And we have a great partnership with World Vision, with the support of our suppliers, that we donated over $110 million of merchandise that could be used in areas around the world. In operations, our objectives are to remain efficient, low-cost operators. We're expanding our STAR Program that we've rolled out, about 2 years ago now to all of our warehouses, making sure that our folks are focused on those key attributes of how they can make an impact in the environment and our commitment overall.
These areas focus on remaining in compliance with regulations, reducing water, energy, and waste while you reduce your overall emissions. Now onto merchandise. As we did with the five stars, we've introduced the six questions to our vendor community, and we ask our suppliers: Can they map their supply chain? How are their people treated? How are the animals treated? How is the environment treated, with a focus on water, forestry, and fisheries? Is the best possible packaging being used in the products you sell at Costco? And what are your emissions and plans to reduce them in the future? We see great work done by our supplier community, such as Vital Proteins, where you see 42 tons of waste removed by removing the plastic spoons, or an 85% reduction in plastic by changing the carrier that they sell their products in to our members on the floor.
This is a global effort for Costco. Here is an example of our Mexico bakery operations team that have moved the soy oil that we purchased in PET containers to what's now called the bag-in-a-box, reducing over 440,000 pounds of plastic annually. While we did that, we doubled the pallet capacity and have less trucks on the road as well. Our buyers continue to look for the best ways to optimize freight and moving goods around the world. This is a seven-piece high-dining patio set. The buyers looked at new packaging opportunities there and were able to get 18 additional sell units on a shipping container. That saved over 156 containers being shipped around the world, which is also a good sustainability move, along with reducing cost of goods for our members in the future as well.
Our Climate Action Plan, continuous progress to reduce operational emissions are Scope 1 and 2, clean energy purchasing and solar programs, energy-efficient LED lighting with a 36% kilowatt reduction, and better refrigerants and systems. Our supply chain emissions, or our Scope 3, 20% intensity reduction target by 2030. That's excluding fuel. Supplier clean energy plan, sustainable agriculture, deforestation-free products, and a fuel transition plan with clean gas, pump efficiency, and EV Charging. The company's financial position as of Q1: cash and equivalents and short-term investments, $17.864 billion. Property and equipment, $27.168 billion. Long-term debt, just shy of $7 billion. And Stockholder Equity, $26.147 billion. Dividends were initiated in May of 2004 at $0.40 per year.
Our current year dividends are paid at $4.08 per year, with a growth rate of 13% per year. We pay out $1.8 billion annually in dividends. We've had 5 special dividends in the last 11 years, for a total of $19.5 billion to date. Our stock repurchase program that was put in place in 2005, $10.8 billion in total expenditures, 134.8 million shares have been retired at an average price of $80.22 per share. In 2023, we repurchased $677 million at an average price of $504 per share. Looking at expansion, in 2020, as you recall, with COVID, things softened up a bit.
We came back strongly in 2021, with 20 new Costco opened up globally. Then in 2022 and 2023, we both years achieved 23 new warehouses. Fiscal year 2024, we had 31 slated. We feel comfortably we're gonna come in close to that number. Could be a couple that will slide into the following year as we come right down to the wire at the end of the year.
Looking at the company's annual growth from December of 1985 through this last fiscal year, net sales at 12.2% growth, net income at 13.2%, and the stock price has grown at 16.9%. In comparison, the S&P 500 has grown at 8.8% over that same time frame. Well, I thank you for your time and your attention and your support over this past year, and we will now move to questions and answers.
Is Costco using membership scanners when members enter the Costco warehouse stores?
Yes, we are. We have deployed 3 test buildings that are using these scanners at the front entrance door. The purpose or the objective of the use of this technology at the door was to improve the experience when members check out at the registers. So we're able to verify the membership, make sure that the renewals are done, and then it just speeds things up for all the members at the front register. So this test has gone very well. We hope to continue to roll this out.
Ron, with the new obesity drugs coming to the market and the trend toward less processed food, what steps is Costco going to take to gain market share in food?
You know, our buyers are fully aware of this, and they continue to march down the path of clean ingredient decks, wholesome foods, looking at plant-based options, and just looking at the best food we can offer for our members. So I think our normal cadence of buying and the items we buy are gonna serve us well, but we continue to monitor this closely and continue to expand on those categories.
Ron, is there a possibility or consideration of a stock split?
A stock split is not under consideration at this time.
Ron, some have questioned the company's co-branded credit card relationship with Citi because of Citi's financing activities relating to oil and gas. What is Costco's position on this?
Citi is indeed a key partner for Costco Wholesale. And we are aware of those petitions that were signed. We are going to continue to move forward with our Climate Action Plan and have been in discussions with Citi about their carbon reduction plans in the future. So we're gonna focus on our efforts that we've got to take forward, and we're gonna stay very close to Citi and their efforts that they're gonna take forward as well.
Ron, will you follow Sam's Club and stop checking receipts as members leave?
We have no plans to stop that process. That control is key to keeping prices down, to ensuring our members receive the products that they paid for, and to make sure that the whole process goes very smoothly. There's no plans to stop that at this time.
The New York Times recently published a report on its investigation of child labor compliance inspections. Is Costco planning additional steps to improve the quality of its audits?
Yes, we do. We do an extensive number of audits of many of our partners now, and we are going to both expand the locations that we're auditing. We're also going to be including in more night shifts and off times that could have a potential problem. So those expansions of the audits and the times that we're checking are being taken care of at this point. So yes, we are reacting to that.
Ron, why doesn't Costco sell dairy-free cheese or yogurt? I would think it would sell well.
In some regions, we are currently selling dairy-free cheese. We have had yogurts in and out. We're currently not carrying that anywhere. We have not found the item that has resonated with our members yet. And so, you know, as you know, Costco, we will continue to try new things and bring items in, but to this point, dairy-free cheese and yogurt has not performed well in our warehouses.
Ron, is Costco researching the use of artificial intelligence for the benefit of or increased efficiency in its operations?
Yes, we are. We have got a specific task force that is charged with moving forward with AI and looking at how different applications can be used securely and safely within our organization and our IT departments and our buying groups and in our operations as well. So AI is indeed on our agenda, and we are moving forward.
Ron, Costco gets substantial revenue from selling gas. Anyone who owns a quality electric car knows internal combustion cars are like horse and buggy compared to electric. Is Costco preparing for electric charging stations wherever they have gas stations, so they can stay ahead of the curve?
Yes, we have. We have, we have added quite a few locations this past year with electric charging stations for our members. And we have piloted a few different situations where we've, we've partnered with third-party suppliers, and we've also purchased our own chargers that we're, we're testing. So we see this as part of the future, and we're looking for the best solutions that we could provide that, that service to our members while visiting a Costco.
Ron, one of our members purchased reading glasses and noticed there was only one case, even though there were three sets of glasses in the package. Can you explain why that's so?
Yeah, that was a change that was made several years ago. We had used to sell 3 pairs of glasses of the reading glasses, and we included, you know, 1-3 cases with that, and we heard back feedback from our members that there was excess cases left around. So we will definitely take a look at this and see if this is something that we're hearing across the board. But this is the first time I've heard that about not enough cases, so we will take a look at it.
Will Costco resume shareholder meetings in person, or will it continue to be virtual?
You know, at this time, we will continue to consider that. This format has seemed to work very well for us in the past couple of years, but that's not to say that we won't look at the in-person somewhere down the road in the future.
Ron, when will members be able to check to see whether their local warehouse carries an item and the price of the item?
This is in early testing stages right now, where we'd love to be able to allow our members to see inventory at the warehouse. So our first phase is in a test mode at this point. Our objective is to have it done prior to the end of the calendar year. So this is a primary focus and a priority for our IT team and our e-commerce team to have completed this year.
Ron, is Costco stocking organic foods? If not, are there plans to do so?
Yes, we stock a substantial amount of organic foods, both in the fresh foods and the refrigerated areas and the dry shelf. That's a significant category for us and is growing very nicely.
Is the company considering gluten-free options for its bakery section?
Gluten-free, you can't produce gluten-free and items with gluten in the same facility, so you've got to have separate facilities to do that. So we do have gluten-free items that are produced in other plants, but as long as we use those products in our warehouses, we cannot produce both in the same. So at this time, we will continue to look for third parties that can partner with us and produce those products.
Ron, is the employee agreement still a good method to stay engaged with the employees meeting their needs?
You know, the employee agreement is one tool of staying engaged with our employees. You know, nothing replaces the one-on-one employee engagement with our managers and all of us as leaders in the company. So the employee agreement is a great tool. It's a great outline for our employees to look forward and see the rules of work and salaries and those type of things. But the key aspect is that's just one of the many ways that we stay engaged.
Ron, one, one member asked: What happened to my favorite maple smoked bacon? The new bacon is very thin and doesn't cook up well.
You know, I would ask that member that provided that question to please reach out to me and let me know what region you're in and where you're buying that bacon. I wouldn't be able to answer that question at this time without looking into what region it's in and what the supplier was. And I'd be glad to get back to you and research that great quality bacon you'd like. With that said, that is all the time we have for questions. For relevant questions that could not be answered due to the time constraints, we will provide prompt responses on the Investor Relations section of our website, with similar questions grouped together and responded to collectively.