Will 2024 be the year of the hot dog? Impossible Foods is betting on it, because its first new product next year will be plant-based hot dogs, coming to both restaurants and grocery stores near you.
The nutritional value of an Impossible Hot Dog aims to beat that of a regular tube steak. The new product contains zero cholesterol (all plants, baby), 12 grams of protein, and 50% less total and saturated fat than one made with animal products. But if you’re reaching for a hot dog, I’m guessing that its nutritional information plays second fiddle to the fact that, well, you want a hot dog. So the biggest factor in this product’s success will be how it actually tastes.
Where to taste the new Impossible Hot Dog
If you’re a fan of Impossible Food products, such as the Burger King Impossible Whopper or the Impossible Chicken Nuggets, you know that the company typically makes its foods easy to find. However, right now there’s only one place interested folks can sample Impossible Hot Dogs: New York City. Impossible will be running a pop-up in Midtown on Saturday, December 16 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., catering to hungry holiday shoppers. Beyond that, you’re not getting your hands on these dogs until an unspecified date in 2024.
Why Impossible Hot Dogs are important
Plant-based meat substitutes are in a pretty tight spot right now. Overall demand for these imitation products has been waning, and companies like Beyond Meat are struggling to grow and thrive. There’s also a newly emerging business challenge for these companies: Cruelty-free cell-cultured meat products are now on the way, having gotten the green light from the USDA.
Given all this, hot dogs are an interesting bet for Impossible Foods. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, in 2022, Americans spent over $8.3 billion on hot dogs and sausage products in supermarkets alone. As Impossible looks to diversify its offerings, this is a large market segment to capitalize on; perhaps the company is hoping to generate interest among regular hot dog consumers looking to cut down on their overall meat consumption.
Impossible Foods isn’t the only one putting resources into vegan hot dogs, either. Massive retailer IKEA has given its plant-based hot dog a recent makeover, aiming to give it a meatier, more hot-doggy feel. That upgraded dog is also rolling out next year.
We should address the obvious: There are plenty of vegan hot dogs on the market already. Field Roast manufactures them, Tofurky’s been in the game forever, and many of them are perfectly good meat substitutes (our friends at Sporked have a ranking of their favorites). Not to mention that Impossible Foods’ lineup already includes these sausages, which have a grainier grind to them than an emulsified hot dog, if that’s what you’re into.
But if there’s anything Impossible aims to do, it’s entice the palates of meat eaters and omnivores, not necessarily lifelong vegans. Will a perfectly smooth bite of fake meat win them over? How will these new hot dogs taste? And when topped with all the elements of a Chicago-style hot dog (relevant to us in Chicago, at least), how easily will consumers spot the difference? We’ll have to find out in 2024, which is just around the bend.