1. Founder Christian F. Kunzler purchased a meat company at 652 Manor Street in Lancaster, PA in 1901 for $700. The company’s headquarters remain at this location to this day.
2. Kunzler & Company is managed by the 4th generation of the Kunzler family.
3. Chris Kunzler, Jr., grandson of founder Christian F. Kunzler, still remains as an active member of the company in his role as Chairman of the Board.
4. President & CEO, Chris Kunzler III, and Executive VP of Operations, John Kunzler, both worked in almost every department of the company before taking their respective leadership roles.
5. Kunzler produces enough hot dogs in one year to circle the earth 3.5 times!
6. All of Kunzler’s ham and bacon products are naturally smoked using real Pennsylvania hardwoods.
7. Kunzler produces the “Official Hot Dog” of the Lancaster Barnstormers.
8. Kunzler has 3 manufacturing facilities producing everything from hot dogs, bacon and hams to sliced deli meats and specialty items like scrapple.
9. On average, there are 15-17 strips of bacon in a 1 lb. pack of regular sliced Kunzler bacon, there are 10-12 strips of bacon in a 1 lb. pack of Extra Thick Kunzler bacon.
10. The Kunzler name originated in Germany.
11. The birds in the Kunzler logo are called Distelfinks, which are often used in Pennsylvania Dutch folk art. They are considered to represent happiness and good fortune.
12. In the summer of 2008 Kunzler beef franks were critically acclaimed in the Rachel Ray Everyday Magazine.
13. One full shift, daily, at Kunzler is spent washing and sterilizing all production areas to ensure safety and quality.
14. Spice formulas learned by founder Christian F. Kunzler as an apprentice butcher in Germany are still in use today.
15. The “wrinkles” at the ends of a hot dog are actually created by the process of twisting the plastic casing to form long hot dog links that are then hung and cooked in a large oven.
16. From the time a Kunzler hot dog enters the oven, it takes approximately 2 hours until it is packaged and ready for shipping.

1. Special selected trimmings are cut and ground into small pieces and put into the mixer. Formulas are continuously weighed to assure proper balance of all ingredients.
2. A high-speed, stainless steel chopper blends meat, spices and curing ingredients into an emulsion or batter.
3. The emulsion is pumped and fed into a stuffer. Shirred strands of cellulose casings are mechanically positioned on the stuffing horn. As the emulsion flows through the horn into the casing, the filled strands are linked into hot dogs of exact size. The strand is then put on the smokehouse conveyor system.
4. In smokehouses, under controlled temperature and humidity, the hot dog is fully cooked and hard-wood smoked for texture, color and a delicious flavor.
5. After passing through the smoke and cook cycle, and being showered in cool water, the hot dog goes into the peeler. Here the protective, air and smoke-permeable cellulose casing "skin" is stripped away and individual links are conveyed to the packaging line.
6. Finally, the hot dog is conveyed to scales which divert off-weight franks, and is then fed into the vacuum packaging equipment. Here, individual packages of exact number and precise weight are wrapped and vacuum sealed in plastic film to protect the freshness and flavor of the hot dog.
7. Once packaged and boxed, hot dogs are moved to storage coolers and loaded on refrigerated trucks for delivery. The entire process, from cut trimmings to the consumer's table is often measured in a matter of hours. From beginning to end, the hot dog is carefully inspected by federal officials according to strict federal standards of quality and sanitation.

Americans eat an unestimatable number of hot dogs each year. In restaurants and at street carts, ballparks and backyard barbeques - hot dogs are everywhere! But depending on where you purchase your hot dog, your toppings may differ radically. Here's our short guide on what to expect when you buy your hot dog away from home.

New York City: New Yorkers eat more hot dogs than any other group in the country. From downtown Manhattan to Coney Island, when you buy your hot dog in the Big Apple, it will come served with steamed onions and a pale, deli-style yellow mustard.

Chicago: The possible antithesis to New York dogs, Chicago dogs are layered with yellow mustard, dark green relish, chopped raw onion, tomato slices and topped with a dash of celery salt and served in a poppy seed bun.

Atlanta and the South: Buying a hot dog at Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, or else where in Atlanta and the south, you'll end up with your dog "dragged through the garden" and topped with coleslaw.

Kansas City: Get the mints out - you'll need them when you order up a hot dog in KC as it is served with sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese on a sesame seed bun.

Baseball Stadiums: Turner Field isn't the only place to get a hot dog styled to local preferences, here are some others to check out:

The Rockie Dog - served at Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies - is a footlong dog with grilled peppers, kraut and onions.

The Fenway Frank - served at none other than Fenway Park - is the only dog to eat while watching the Red Sox. Its boiled and grilled and served in a New England style bun with mustard and relish.

The Texas Dog - chili, cheese and jalapenos make this the favored item at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

Other Regional Preferences: Midwesterners eat more pork and beef hot dogs than any other region of the country.

Westerners eat more poultry hot dogs than any other region of the country, however, southerns are a close second.

Easterns perfer all-beef hot dogs and consumer more than any other region of the country.

Dachsunds, Dog Wagons and Other Important Elements of Hot Dog History

Sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food, having been mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as far back as the 9th Century B.C.

Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is traditionally credited with originating the frankfurter. However, this claim is disputed by those who assert that the popular sausage - known as a "dachshund" or "little-dog" sausage - was created in the late 1600's by Johann Georghehner, a butcher, living in Coburg, Germany. According to this report, Georghehner later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his new product.

In 1987, the city of Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the hot dog in that city. It's said that the frankfurter was developed there in 1487, five years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world. The people of Vienna (Wien), Austria, point to the term "wiener" to prove their claim as the birthplace of the hot dog.

As it turns out, it is likely that the North American hot dog comes from a widespread common European sausage brought here by butchers of several nationalities. Also in doubt is who first served the dachshund sausage with a roll. One report says a German immigrant sold them, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from a push cart in New York City's Bowery during the 1860's. In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand selling 3,684 dachshund sausages in a milk roll during his first year in business.

The year, 1893, was an important date in hot dog history. In Chicago that year, the Colombian Exposition brought hordes of visitors who consumed large quantities of sausages sold by vendors. People liked this food that was easy to eat, convenient and inexpensive. Hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, Ph.D., retired professor emeritus at Roosevelt University, says the Germans always ate the dachshund sausages with bread. Since the sausage culture is German, it is likely that Germans introduced the practice of eating the dachshund sausages, which we today know as the hot dog, nestled in a bun.

Also in 1893, sausages became the standard fare at baseball parks. This tradition is believed to have been started by a St. Louis bar owner, Chris Von de Ahe, a German immigrant who also owned the St. Louis Browns major league baseball team.

Many hot dog historians chafe at the suggestion that today's hot dog on a bun was introduced during the St. Louis "Louisiana Purchase Exposition" in 1904 by Bavarian concessionaire, Anton Feuchtwanger. As the story goes, he loaned white gloves to his patrons to hold his piping hot sausages and as most of the gloves were not returned, the supply began running low. He reportedly asked his brother-in-law, a baker, for help. The baker improvised long soft rolls that fit the meat - thus inventing the hot dog bun. Kraig says everyone wants to claim the hot dog bun as their own invention, but the most likely scenario is the practice was handed down by German immigrants and gradually became widespread in American culture.

Another story that riles serious hot dog historians is how term "hot dog" came about. Some say the word was coined in 1901 at the New York Polo Grounds on a cold April day. Vendors were hawking hot dogs from portable hot water tanks shouting "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" A New York Journal sports cartoonist, Tad Dorgan, observed the scene and hastily drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages nestled warmly in rolls. Not sure how to spell "dachshund" he simply wrote "hot dog!" The cartoon is said to have been a sensation, thus coining the term "hot dog." However, historians have been unable to find this cartoon, despite Dorgan's enormous body of work and his popularity.

Kraig, and other culinary historians, point to college magazines where the word "hot dog" began appearing in the 1890s. The term was current at Yale in the fall of 1894,when "dog wagons" sold hot dogs at the dorms. The name was a sarcastic comment on the provenance of the meat. References to dachshund sausages and ultimately hot dogs can be traced to German immigrants in the 1800s. These immigrants brought not only sausages to America, but dachshund dogs. The name most likely began as a joke about the Germans' small, long, thin dogs. In fact, even Germans called the frankfurter a "little-dog" or "dachshund" sausage, thus linking the word "dog" to their popular concoction.