SAN ANTIONIO – As with the entire meat category, hot dogs have seen significant sales growth in the weeks since the onset of coronavirus (COVID-19) compared to the same timeframe in 2019. 

During the weeks of March 15 and March 22 sales were elevated 123% and 127%, respectively, above 2019 numbers. Heading into the third week of April, sales weren’t quite that high, but still elevated. Date from 210 Analytics and IRI shows that during the the week ending on April 19, hot dog sales were up 29%. 

Beef hot dogs represent over 60% of hot dog sales and saw the most growth for the week of April 19 with a 36% increase over 2019. Non-beef hot dogs saw a rise of 18%.  

The surge has shown that consumers are in the market for all different sizes of packaging. The most common packaging size is eight-pack hot dogs, which represented 51% of all sales but saw the lowest sales growth at 26% higher than 2019. Ten-count packages were elevated by 37%, six-count by 47% and 24-count by 51%. Larger packages are doing very well during the outbreak.