Carpe Di-jon! PETA Offers Vegan Hot Dogs for National Mustard Day Celebration

For Immediate Release:
July 15, 2026

Contact:
Andrew Grant 202-483-7382

Ahead of the National Mustard Museum’s National Mustard Day celebration on August 1, PETA sent a letter today to museum founder and curator Barry Levenson with a bunbelievable offer: PETA will provide as many vegan hot dogs and buns as the museum would like—and even serve them so staff won’t be spread thin—to ensure that all visitors can enjoy the festivities.

In the letter, PETA points out that serving vegan hot dogs would be kind to pigs and cows and make the event more enticing and inclusive for the many people who don’t eat meat for ethical, environmental, health, or religious reasons. Opting for meat-free dogs could also help keep visitors coming back for more—given that going vegan slashes an individual’s risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and other health conditions.

“Having vegan hot dogs on the menu during the National Mustard Day celebration would give compassionate condiment connoisseurs something to truly relish,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is eager to help the Mustard Museum celebrate this beloved condiment with delicious vegan franks, which are kind to both animals and taste buds.”

Pigs are soothed by music, and cows mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. But in the meat industry, they’re crammed into filthy sheds or kept on crowded feedlots and subjected to tail docking, castration, and other mutilations with no pain relief. Eventually, they’re forced onto transport trucks for a terrifying journey to a slaughterhouse, where workers shoot them in the head with a captive bolt gun and slit their throats—often while they’re still conscious.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a pig is a dog is a boy. PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help anyone looking to make the switch. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Levenson follows.

July 15, 2026

Barry Levenson

Founder and Curator

National Mustard Museum

Dear Mr. Levenson:

Greetings! I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA entities have more than 10.4 million members and supporters globally, including over 95,000 in Wisconsin—ahead of National Mustard Day with an offer we hope you’ll relish: To make sure everyone can enjoy the occasion, including people who don’t eat animal products for ethical, environmental, health, or religious reasons, will you please serve vegan hot dogs and buns at the event? We’d happily donate as many vegan hot dogs as you’d like, even serve them up, at the upcoming celebration.

There are a bunch of reasons to add vegan hot dogs to your offerings. The global market for plant-based hot dogs is seeing significant growth and is projected to reach $162 million this year. Vegan food sales have grown by 48% over the past six years alone, and 62% of Americans now purchase vegan foods in place of meat and dairy. Adding vegan hot dogs would also help protect the health of visitors and keep them coming back for more, as studies show that going vegan helps reduce the risk of suffering from diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other health problems.

To be frank, our offer would also spare the pigs, cows, and other animals who are ground into hot dogs from being abused and slaughtered. These intelligent, sensitive individuals feel pain, experience fear, and form strong social bonds. The millions killed in the U.S. each year are typically raised on filthy factory farms, where they endure extreme crowding, chronic stress, and routine mutilations without pain relief before being loaded onto trucks for a terrifying journey to the slaughterhouse, where they’re violently killed. It’s enough to make anyone lose their lunch.

We hope you see a golden opportunity to spread kindness at the National Mustard Day celebration this year, and with vegan hot dogs on the menu, we’re sure the event would mustard up even more excitement. We look forward to hearing from you about our offer. Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid Newkirk

Founder