An April 21 SEC document for Nathan’s Famous announces that the company has received a $1.22M Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government and that its hot dogs were produced by a currently closed Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, SD which has been labelled as the top coronavirus hotspot in the USA. Despite the shutdown, Nathan’s does not expect a disruption in national frankfurter supplies even if the facility’s reopening (currently scheduled for the week of April 27) is delayed.

The primary manufacturer of our hot dogs, Smithfield Foods, has recently announced the closure of four of its plants due to COVID-19. The only plant closure that has any relationship to our operations is the Sioux Falls plant which is currently scheduled to reopen during the week of April 27, 2020. In the event that the Smithfield Foods plant reopening is delayed, we do not anticipate that the rapidly evolving COVID-19 outbreak will have a material adverse effect on our supply of hot dogs over the next several months.

update Daily Beast reports that Nathan’s will return the loan.

update April 28 President Trump announced he will invoke the Defense Production Act to force meatpacking facilities to remain open. Nathan’s Famous executive chairman Howard Lorber is a friend of the Trump family and hosted a fundraiser in 2018.

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Official Results – finals
1:50 Joey Chestnut (Penalized 1 Sec)
2:48 Gideon Oji (Penalized 5 Sec)

3rd place
2:36 Nick Wehry (Penalized 3 Sec)
2:40 Darron Breeden (Penalized 1 Sec)

The BetOnline Quarantine Challenge Finals between Gideon Oji and Joey Chestnut can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNkbtTZd-A The food will be 10 cups of Nissin Cup Ramen. There will also be a third place matchup between Darron Breeden and Nick Wehry.

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Results
Gideon Oji 1:45 (penalized 2 seconds)
Darron Breeden 2:10

Joey Chestnut 2:03
Nick Wehry 3:35

The semifinals can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1DQ1YsDA4

The matchups are Darron Breeden vs. Gideon Oji and Joey Chestnut vs. Nick Wehry

The food is 10 pounds of baked beans

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Results

2:51 Gideon Oji (2 second penalty)
4:08 Badlands Booker

2:28 Darron Breeden (2 second penalty)
3:09 Matt Stonie

3:36 Joey Chestnut
3:40 Michelle Lesco (10 second penalty)

2:49 Nick Wehry
2:51 Miki Sudo

The round 2 matchups will be Wehry vs. Chestnut and Oji vs. Breedencan be viewed on the MLE youtube channel

The matchups are

(1) Gideon Oji vs. (8) Badlands Booker
(2) Joey Chestnut vs. (7) Michelle Lesco
(3) Miki Sudo vs. (6) Nick Wehry
(4) Matt Stonie vs. (5) Darron Breeden

According to the database, Michelle Lesco has never won a contest where Joey Chestnut has competed. The 2013 Chicago was her (2nd) only finish ahead of him (3rd). Head to Head results

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update Official times, first to finish 2 lbs of bologna ( video)
1 Gideon Oji 0:52
2 Joey Chestnut 0:55
3 Miki Sudo 1:01
4 Matt Stonie 1:03
5 Darron Breeden 1:15
6 Nick Wehry 1:17
7 Michelle Lesco 1:51
8 Badlands Booker 2:16

The round 1 matchups on Sunday will be Oji vs Booker, Chestnut vs. Lesco, Sudo vs. Wehry and Stonie vs. Breeden. The food will be milk and cookies.

The bologna round should start at http://youtube.com/majorleagueeating at 7pm eastern. This round will determine seeding for the remaining three.

The Quarantine Challenge is not the first video based MLE competition. In 2012, Jello announced the Pudding Prix in which amateurs would submit videos of themselves eating pudding. The event fizzled out with no winners announced after I pointed out that it was in complete violation of MLE safety policy.

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Voting is now open for the 2020 “Finkies” competitive eating awards. The award ceremony will be video-based this year. A podcast about the awards. The categories and choices are:

Eater of the Year
Darron Breeden
Joey Chestnut
Geoff Esper
Joel Hansen
Miki Sudo

Peacock
Badlands Booker
Crazy Legs Conti
Miki Sudo and Nick Wehry
Juan Rodriguez and Sarah Reinecke
Katie Prettyman

Muggle (non competitive eating award)
Michelle Lesco – Brain cancer awareness
Rene Rovtar – school superintendent
Yasir Salem – 50 marathons in 50 states
Ronnie Hartman – pro wrestling
Bartley Weaver – Tennessee Titans mascot

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Major League Eating announced today the BetOnline Quarantine Challenge today, a 4 round, 8 person tournament that can be viewed on youtube. The purse is $11,500 with $5,000 awarded to the winner. The schedule:

Apr 17 Qualifying Round, Bologna
Apr 19 Quarterfinals, Milk and Cookies
Apr 21 Semifinals, Baked Beans
Apr 22 Finals, Ramen

Joey Chestnut, Matt Stonie, Darron Breeden, Badlands Booker, Miki Sudo, Michelle Lesco, Gideon Oji and Nick Wehry are expected to compete.

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The New York Times ranked Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, SD as the #4 coronavirus hotspot in the United States after 190 cases were detected there. In 2014, Nathan’s Famous started a licensing agreement with Smithfield Foods for it to manufacture and distribute Nathan’s branded hot dogs. update The plant will be shutdown for three days to sanitize the facility. PBS.org has a report on the 2013 takeover of Smithfield Foods by Shuanghui International for $4.7 billion, the largest Chinese takeover of any American company.

update Apr 12 Smithfield announced today the plant would be closed for an indefinite period

“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply. It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers. These farmers have nowhere to send their animals,” said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer, for Smithfield.

update April 14 There are now 545 coronavirus cases associated with the facility, which makes it the #2 hotspot according to the New York Times and the top located in the 50 states. (The overall #1 is an aircraft carrier currently in Guam).

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