The Story Behind The World's Biggest Commercially Sold Hot Dog

It seems like there's a Guinness World Record for everything under the sun, but no subject is more intrinsically geared towards record-setting feats than food. There are so many angles of approach — world's tallest X, world's most expensive X, most X eaten in one sitting — the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately, records are typically set in one-time events; if you're not there when they happen, you'll never get another chance. Thankfully, for a brief, glorious moment in time, one man decided to create a record-breaking meal that anyone could experience firsthand: the world's biggest commercially sold hot dog.

The Guinness World Record for the world's largest hot dog (commercially available) was set in 2011 by Gorilla Tango Novelty Meats in Chicago. The company's record-setting sausage, aptly named "The Big Hot Dog," was 16 inches long, 4 inches in diameter, and weighed in at 7 pounds. The typical weight for a traditional hot dog is a little less than 2 ounces, which made The Big Hot Dog nearly 75 times larger than average. This is true "Man v. Food" territory, but the hot dog's inventor admits that it was never meant to be eaten whole.

Gorilla Tango Novelty Meats was founded by Dan Abbate in 2009, with The Big Hot Dog as its only major product. To make these behemoths, Abbate contracted Schmeisser's Homemade Sausage. Abbate told Guinness that he wanted to solve "an inherent problem with small hot dogs" His gripe was that standard-sized hot dogs roll all over the grill, and it's hard to get an even sear on all sides. He wanted something with flat sides that would stay put for a nice char. This was the real key to The Big Hot Dog. It wasn't meant to be eaten whole. Instead, customers were supposed to cut it into slices and serve them on hamburger buns.

For the sake of setting the world record, Abbate had to serve the sausage whole, requiring an extra-large bun. Being that he's a Chicagoan, you might expect him to have prepared a full-on Chicago-style hot dog, but he decided not to overcomplicate things, topping it with only mustard and ketchup (he did go with the traditional poppy seed bun, though).

Unfortunately, it appears that The Big Hot Dog is no longer available and hasn't been for some time. The Gorilla Tango Novelty Meats website has posted a message claiming to be out of inventory since 2015, and the last post on the site's blog dates back to 2013. However, it doesn't appear that anyone has been able to challenge The Big Hot Dog's record since.

The Big Hot Dog may be the largest commercially available hot dog, but it's nowhere near the largest hot dog of all time. Multiple contenders have stepped up to that challenge, with a recent notable case coming from Coney Island institution Feltman's, which some have credited as inventing the hot dog (The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which is indeed a real thing, casts doubt on this claim). In 2019, they created a 5-foot-long, 66-pound hot dog, which they submitted to Guinness for record recognition. At 2 feet wide, it may be able to claim the record for the world's girthiest hot dog, but the largest? Not even close.

However, Guinness currently lists the world's longest hot dog as being made by Novex S.A. at the 2011 Expoferia in Paraguay. It measured 668 feet and 264 pounds. The sausage was then cut up and served to 2,000 people (this is crucial, as Guinness previously revoked the record for the world's largest bowl of fried rice after determining its creators wasted it). It seems that Novex S.A. lost its grip on the longest hot dog record in 2017, when residents of Flensburg, Germany, made a 717-foot-long hot dog. As of this writing, Guinness has not listed this record on its website, and since the sausage appears to be the average circumference of a standard dog, it's debatable whether it can claim to be the largest overall.