The Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Brand Was Sold In A Massive All-Cash Deal — Here's For How Much

If you live in New York, Nathan's Famous in Coney Island might as well be a synonym for "hot dog" because of its food stand presence all over the city. On a larger scale, it's best known for the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest held on the Fourth of July every year. Behind the scenes, there have been some changes going on inside the hot dog company, including a recent buyout: Nathan's Famous has just been sold to the tune of $450 million.

The new owner of Nathan's Famous is the U.S. meat packaging titan, Smithfield Foods, but the two companies were already heavily intertwined. Since 2014, Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Virginia, already held a license to make and sell Nathan's-branded hot dogs across the U.S. and Canada (and in Sam's Club stores in Mexico). As of this new deal, Smithfield is now the full owner of Nathan's Famous, and bought it up for a slightly premium price of $102 per share. And that $450 million total is all in cash.

The quality of Nathan's Famous hot dogs seems unlikely to change: Nathan's hot dogs were already made by the Chinese company WH Group, which owns Smithfield Foods as a subsidiary. It's still a big change for the hot dog company, which began as a humble Coney Island hot dog stand owned by Nathan Handwerker in 1916, who sold hot dogs made with his wife Ida's secret recipe for a nickel each. Handwerker's son Murray eventually took over and expanded the business, selling it to private investors in the '80s who then ran the company as Nathan's Famous Inc.

As the transaction is anticipated to close in the first half of 2026, the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest seems safe; Smithfield announced in a statement that the annual contest will continue in Coney Island as usual. In 2025, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest giant and professional eater, Joey Chestnut, won as expected, putting away a clean (or a messy) 70.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Assuming he doesn't get banned again like he did in 2024 — there was a brief spat over Chestnut endorsing rival hot dog brand Impossible Foods — he should once again make an appearance in Coney Island, even with contest organizers under new management.