We have a wiener ... uh, a winner!

We here at The Board Room searched far and wide to find someone in the design industry to craft a new form of America's favorite food after it was deemed a choking hazard last month by a group of pediatricians. As luck would have it, the winner of our first contest is a huge fan of the hot dog as well. Here's the winning entry from Joshua Carney, president of Carney Engineering Group (York, PA), an eight-person structural engineering and steel design firm:

"Well, you’re talking my favorite food here, so while we should certainly put safety first, let’s solve the hot dog's other problems as well. First, by the time you layer on ketchup, relish, mustard, etc. (don’t forget mayo and BBQ sauce…my favorites), it’s a mess to eat. I am not what is known as a careful eater, hence the tendency for my shirt to look like my plate. Second, when I have a hot dog craving, I want it fast, and if I am grilling, there’s nothing less appealing than charred on the outside and cold on the inside.

"So, we basically need a way to encapsulate the fixins for shirt protection and reduce the overall material thickness for quicker and more even heating. The overall chunkiness needs to be minimized in order to not have big pieces for a kid to choke on. God knows my daughter does not actually chew them when she is eating them.

"So I propose a new and reinvented hot dog called the hot roll. It would be a sheet of yummy hot dog, say 4” x 6” x 1/8” or so, which can be pan-fried, grilled or steamed, then laid flat on a spread open hot dog roll for application of the good stuff. Then, simply roll it up in a cross between a taco and a burrito, and dig in. The thin profile would allow for fast heating, the shape is easily extruded and could have a layer applied to skin it and hold it together, it would not have big chunks causing choking, and as far as packaging….flat pack….need I say more? It could be tailored to different shapes for different holidays, and at the end of the day, is a more efficient delivery tool for the dog."

Sounds to me like these should be served at this year's Hot Firm Conference and Celebration in Washington, D.C. Who better than a group of design professionals to test the specs on this new creation?

Here's Josh's winning entry, followed by a rendering by ZweigWhite's resident architecture school grad and marketing coordinator, Sarah Nasznic. Apologies to those who didn't win. If you think you can do better, we'd love to hear from you. We'll be sure to launch another contest soon, so do stay tuned.: