You might expect to see hot dogs and hamburgers at the top, but not in New Jersey. In fact, you won't find them in the top 5 anywhere in America for that matter.

It's an unusual statistic for the 4th of July in 2024, but one that might not be totally unexpected. Before we get to the top 5 food items overall, there is one very odd increase, and it has to do with charcoal.

For some reason, charcoal sales increased by 222% leading up to this Fourth of July holiday. Not sure if people simply decided to get more charcoal grills or if they got tired of paying for propane, but for whatever reason, it was all about charcoal. Interesting.

OK, now onto the top 5 foods. And again, this is for the 2024 number leading up to and during the big Independence Day weekend across the country. Although these are national reports, the number one spot does appear to verify here in The Garden State when it comes to volume of sales.

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Coming in at #5 for food are canned baked beans, followed by hot dog buns at #4. However, keep #4 in mind because we're going to come back to the hot dog buns with an unusual twist in just a bit.

Next up at #3 are baby back ribs, followed by potato salad at #2. So far this all sounds like the makings of a great Independence Day celebration.

And at the top of the list, you might expect to find hamburgers or hot dogs, right? Wrong. Believe it or not, the #1 food item saw a whopping 380% increase in sales leading up to and during the big 4th of July holiday weekend. So what was it?

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The #1 food item for the big Independence Day weekend in 2024 was actually yellow corn. Yup, yellow corn beat out the classic hamburger and hot dog for the top spot.

In fact, did you happen to notice neither the burger nor dogs made the top 5? In fact, hot dogs didn't even show up in the top 10. That's very fascinating since the hot dog buns did make an appearance.

Burger patties at least did. Frozen patties came in as the seventh most popular, with fresh beef patties coming in as the ninth most popular based on sales volume.

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Yellow corn might be number one nationally, but was that the case for New Jersey? According to those who work at supermarkets in New Jersey, that appears to be the case.

In fact, I included this fun fact as one of my trivia questions during my Sunday Morning show on July 7, and a supermarket manager here in New Jersey called in specifically telling me that there was a surge this year with people asking for corn leading up to the big Independence Day holiday.

So yeah, for some reason we all wanted yellow corn more than anything else this past 4th of July holiday weekend. Yes, it's normal to see items get shuffled on the list, but a 380% increase in sales when compared to last year? That's absolutely insane.

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You can check out the full top 10 list and analysis from Instacart via Delish regarding the 2024 4th of July holiday here. Since the above stats omitted non-food items, some of the rankings on the official list will differ a bit to reflect that change.

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Now, will yellow corn remain at the top in 2025? And will hot dogs eventually return to the list? Remember, the hot dog itself didn't rank at all, but somehow the buns did? What a strange twist.

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The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.

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