Skip to main content

On Your Table Blog

July 3, 2025

Will there be hot dogs?

Will there be hot dogs?

by Dawn Smith-Pfeifer

What food screams 4th of July more than hot dogs? Nothing, it turns out. I did some research for this post, because I was curious how important hot dogs are to our national economy (At least that's where I started. Rabbit hole alert incoming!)

A Ripley's (yes THAT Ripley's, as in Believe it or not!) headline says that each July 4, Americans eat 155 million dogs. To put it in perspective, the rest of the headline indicates,"That's enough hot dogs to make a line from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles five times!" I'm not going to do the math on that one, but feel free if you want to check their work!

If you read further into the post, you will also find that Americans spend $8.5 billion on hot dogs and sausages in supermarkets each year. And that doesn't even count the ones eaten at ballparks or street fairs.

My son was a big hot dog eater when he was little. My daughter wasn't. At some point, hot dogs just fell off our family menu. But now that it's just Hubs and me and the dog (the four-legged variety), we sometimes buy the Cloverdale red hot dogs and a can of Hormel chili and make chili dogs for supper. We pan-fry the hot dogs instead of microwaving them to give them a nice sear. But I digress.

Not content to just relay Ripley's information on hot dogs, I decided to visit their source, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. If there is ANYTHING you want to learn about hot dogs or sausages, they are the place to go.

How they are made - Amazingly, "the entire process, from cut trimmings to the consumer's table is often measured in a matter of hours."

How we eat them across the U.S. - Toppings matter. Depending where you live, the hot dog could feature sauerkraut and onions or cream cheese.

The history of the hotdog - I always think it's fascinating to see who lays claim to "inventing" the foods we eat.

Who eats all those hotdogs and where we eat them - Have you ever eaten a "dog" at an airport? According to the website, "Chicago's O'Hare International Airport consumes six times more hot dogs, 725,000 more than Los Angeles International Airport and LaGuardia Airport combined."

Finally, July has been designated Hot Dog Month, so if it has been a few years since you've enjoyed a "dog," now's the time!

The National Hotdog and Sausage Council produced this infographic

Happy Independence Day!

Smith-Pfeifer is an NDFB employee and editor of its On Your Table website.