We're looking for a very specific hot dog.
August 22, 2016 11:04 AM   Subscribe

Who made A&P's house brand chicken hot dogs, and where can I buy them today?

Last summer, my husband and I stopped at an A&P in New Jersey and bought some chicken hot dogs. He LOVED them. Like, he still talks about how good they were. Unfortunately, A&P went out of business shortly thereafter, and I wasn't able to get to NJ to stock up on them before all the stores closed.

I forget what the house brand was called, but it was definitely the A&P "store brand". Like how Costco has "Kirkland" and Target has "Up & Up" - this was A&P's brand. I want to say it had the word "America" or "American" in it.

I've been trying to figure out who made these hot dogs for them and who else they sell to, so I can try to see if I can get the same ones under a different label. We've tried Trader Joe's, Pathmark, Shoprite, and a couple others that I can't recall. We're in NYC (Brooklyn) but I travel to Long Island, Westchester and CT frequently.

Please help my husband have the hot dogs of his dreams once again!
posted by AlisonM to Food & Drink (5 answers total)
 
Any factory in the US that packages meat, poultry, or eggs must put their plant code on the package. If you can locate it perhaps you can track the plant down or cross-reference to another product sold somewhere else. Trader Joe fans do this all the time.

Here's the database from the USDA.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:18 AM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is not as scientific as finding the exact plant, and may involve some trial and error on your part, but by comparing nutritional profiles we might be able to track it down.

I found nutritional information for America's Choice (the A&P house brand) Chicken Franks here. Assuming that's the product your husband dreams of, one hot dog has 60 calories, 3.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 1 gram of carbs, and 7 grams of protein.

I found two other chicken hot dogs with similar nutritional profiles. First, the Key Food Chicken Hot Dog has 60 calories, 4 grams of fat (which is 3.5 rounded up), 1 gram of saturated fat, 1 gram of carbs, and 7 grams of protein. Key Food has locations in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Second, Applegate Farms' Chicken Hot Dogs have 60 calories, 3 grams of fat (which is 3.5 rounded down), 1 gram of saturated fat, 1 gram of carbs, and 7 grams of protein. Here's where you can find Applegate Farms.

If it's not logistically possible to go to a Key Food or you can't find Applegate Farms, you might be able to find the right one at your local store by looking for chicken franks with a similar nutritional profile to the one attributed to America's Choice.
posted by slmorri at 11:55 AM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


one of the store brands mentioned in the wikipedia article for the A&P is 'america's choice', which lines up with your memory. there's an image of their beef hot dogs here, and you can zoom in (without enhancing) and make out the distributor address pretty well. you might start there to see if the same people distributed the chicken hot dogs.
posted by koroshiya at 11:57 AM on August 22, 2016


America's Choice
posted by AugustWest at 12:04 PM on August 22, 2016


Randomly, I found this Instacart webpage that suggests you might be able to find America's Choice chicken franks at The Food Emporium.
posted by cabingirl at 12:41 PM on August 22, 2016


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