ROCHESTER, N.Y. — We’re closing in on the Fourth of July weekend, and to celebrate back in 2009, News10NBC paid a visit to the Zweigle’s factory here in Rochester. Fifteen years and an expansion later, the family-owned business is still going strong.

News10NBC’s Hailie Higgins stopped by Wednesday morning as they packed the last of the white hots before the holiday weekend.

“I’m proud and honored to have this legacy that’s been in Rochester for almost 145 years; it feels amazing and wonderful,” said Julie Camardo, owner and CEO of Zweigle’s.

You can find Zweigle’s red hots at just about any street cart or grocery store in Rochester — and many in Buffalo. But downstate and out-of-state, this symbol of Rochester summer is harder to come by, only carried by some Wegmans stores.

“It sets us apart – really Rochester from the rest of the country. So, we have something that’s really unique to our area – red hots and white hots – but particularly white hots. There’s no other region in the United States that has a product like this,” Camardo said.

CEO Julie Camardo says all those hots come from one place — the factory on North Plymouth Avenue. Sixty-three full-time employees make about 25,000 pounds of products every single day. They don’t just make Zweigle’s brand dogs and sausages and meatballs, they also do manufacturing for small companies, and even some Wegmans meat products. But the crowd favorite is the classic.

“By far the red pop-open is our number-one selling item across retail and food service,” said Steve Vacanti, VP of marketing and sales at Zweigle’s.

Now in its fifth generation as a family-owned business, Camardo says that while they’re always looking to expand, they are happy to keep cooking up Rochester classics right here in the Flower City.

Camardo says they’re always working on new products. In the research phase right now is a clean label sausage brand, as well as “different versions” of their flagship items.

So who knows, maybe this time next year we’ll be chowing down on a vegetarian red hot.

Here’s our report from 2009:

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