By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

Everyone has a favored method for preparing then eating hot dogs: grilled, steamed or boiled; topped with mustard, relish or ketchup; red, all-beef or regular. But one business in Kennebunk is offering another option – flat or round.
Shields Market & Produce owned by brothers Dean and Greg Shields have invented a flat hot dog, called a flat-furter. The new product is shaped like a hamburger patty with hopes it will be safer for children.
“I was coming to work in March and I heard on the radio that so many kids were choking on hot dogs,” Dean Shields said. “ I thought we could flatten the hot dogs out so they would be more kid-friendly.”
According to a study by the medical journal Pediatrics, more than 1,700 children younger than 14 choke every year on hot dogs.
Dean Shields began talking to his producers, who were a little skeptical in the beginning.
“The guy that produces with me went blank for a while. I was like ‘hello? Are you still here?’” he said. “At first I was even wondering if it could be done.”
But after a few days Dean Shields and his producer came up with a 3-ounce hot dog patty – a skinless product with a fine casing along the outside – exactly the same as a regular hot dog, only wider.
The patty may look like a regular thick slice of bologna, but don’t call it a bologna patty.
“It’s not bologna. The spice for bologna and hot dogs is different,” Dean Shields said.
Shields even gave the new hot dogs a Maine makeover. Red hot dogs are a tradition in Maine, so after perfecting the regular flat hot dog his next step was to make a red flat-furter, Dean Shields said.
Dean and Greg Shields are the fourth generation of their family to run the meat market and Dean Shields hopes his children may be the fifth.
Shields has expanded its product line over its 70 years to include five other kinds of hot dogs, including beef and red hot dogs. Many of Shields’ products already are on shelves of other grocery stores, and Dean Shields hopes the new flat-furters will soon get wider distribution.
The Biddeford Ice Arena concession stand will sell the hot dog patties, under the name “The hockey puck.”
Paul Boissonneault, who leases the concession stand, said he was looking for a sandwich he could call a “hockey puck” and Shields won the spot because kids really enjoy the product.
“It’s a great item, the kids love it, my grandkids love hot dogs. The flavoring and spices really come out in the flat patty,” Boissonneault said.
    
Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.