Oscar Mayer's Unexpected Solution To Heinz's Hot Dog Pact

When Stephen Colbert covered Heinz's petition for a change in hot dog bun packaging, Oscar Mayer smelled the chance to snag a headline or two.

The story was in response to the perennial issue of having to buy hot dogs in packages of 10 and hot dog buns in packages of eight. After all, the two go together, so it seems like a strange mismatch between products. Thus, Heinz initiated a petition on Change.org to get "Big Bun" and "Big Weiner" companies to sort this silliness out. As of this writing, 29,388 people have signed said petition.

Now, Oscar Mayer has embraced the discourse with this simple tweet. Its focus is a picture of a bag with two buns inside. "We feel so seen," the company wrote. "We will always believe hot dogs are a perfect 10, so here's an idea for anyone who needs more buns. 5,700 RTs and we will make it happen. Let's change the world together." As of this writing, the tweet only has 1,888 retweets, so they may not have to address the promise to produce bags with two buns. But that doesn't mean this solution hasn't garnered buzz.

The responses to Oscar Mayer's tweet are about as mixed as you might imagine.

One user noted the economic waste of the idea: "People will pay more for the plastic than the buns themselves." Others hit upon the point of the whole story in the first place, with one person writing, "Just buy hotdogs in the packages of 8," while another took the idea rather seriously: "Why not just make a 10 pack of rolls? But I guess you can make a lot more $$ selling these 2 Packs. Wasteful packaging."

However, Oscar Mayer might have accidentally solved a different problem. You see, the problem with having a bag of 10 buns (or even eight) is that a lot of buns inevitably become stale and go to waste. With smaller amounts, you can actually eat all the buns before their mayfly life spans sputters out. Now, how one would do this without increasing the amount of plastic waste is unclear. We're lucky, then, that no one cares for this idea enough to push Oscar Mayer into actually following through.