Meat + Poultry - September 2010 - 79

I
Innovation

Hot dog
makeover?
Choking hazards associated with
hot dogs draw attention, criticism
BY KIMBERLIE CLYMA
kclyma@sosland.com

arlier this year, hot dogs went under the microscope when members
of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published its policy statement, "Prevention of Choking Among
Children." The AAP called not only

E

Gene Gagliardi invented a hot dog designed with
eight lengthwise slits down the sides to address
choking concerns.

for a label to be placed on hot-dog
packages warning parents of potential choking risks, but also a redesign
of the all-American food so their size,
shape and texture would make them
less likely to lodge in someone's throat.
More than 10,000 children under
the age of 14 go to the emergency
room each year after choking on food,
and up to 77 die, according to the policy statement published in Pediatrics.
"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design
the perfect plug for a child's airway, it
would be a hot dog," said Gary Smith,
director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, in
a statement earlier this year."
Gene Gagliardi, food inventor and

founder of Creativators LLC, a product development company specializing in meat and poultry products, has
been concerned about this issue with
hot dogs for years. In the 1990s, Gagliardi - the product developer behind
Steak-Umms and popcorn chicken
(See "An appetite for inventing" in
the August issue of Meat&Poultry) -
invented a hot dog designed with eight
lengthwise slits down the sides to address the choking concerns. The eight
slits in the hot dog allow the hot dog
to automatically fall apart into smaller pieces when bitten into or when
cut around.
"What we're trying to do is make
a safer hot dog," Gagliardi says. "My
method doesn't alter the production of
the product, it's just a final slicing step
performed before packaging. It can
actually enhance the taste of the hot
dog." Gagliardi explains that during
the cooking process, the slits open up,
which allows for the condiments to adhere to the hot dog better when eaten.

Do it yourself
Many argue that "redesigning" a hot
dog to make it safer for children to
consume is simply a matter of pulling out a kitchen paring knife. Janet
Riley, president of the National Hot
Dog & Sausage Council, takes the
threat posed to children eating any
type of food seriously. She doesn't
dispute the risk of children choking
on hot dogs - or other foods like carrots, grapes or gummy foods - but

58 * Meat&Poultry * September 2010 * www.MeatPoultry.com

she points out that many hot-dog
manufacturers already put warning
messages on their products advising
parents to cut up the foods, and that,
combined with conscientious parents
taking the time to safely prepare foods
for their children, should be enough.
But Gagliardi wants to make that process easier for consumers.
Gagliardi had previously invented a
do-it-yourself device called the Guard
Dog for people to create lengthwise
slits in their hot dogs at home, but he
sold that patent.
Now Gagliardi is promoting technology to be adopted by hot-dog
manufacturers at the plant. He calls
it Kinder-Cut (pronounced like kindergarten with kinder being the German word for children). He is working
with Rastelli Foods Group to license

The Guard Dog safety cutter is a do-ityourself cutting system to help parents slice
hot dogs in a safe way for children to eat.

the technology. Berks Packing Co.,
a meat processor that distributes in
southeastern Pennsylvania, plans to
distribute the product soon.
"I don't want to give hot dogs a bad
name and call them 'dangerous,' but if
the industry can make a small change
to make them safer for everyone who
eats them, why not do it?" Gagliardi
said, "My goal is to have every company that makes hot dogs use this
technology, from the big companies
to the small ones." ■
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Meat + Poultry - September 2010

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