Denmark

Invited by the Danish embassy, she brought her hot dog stand to Japan. While the bicycle race during its eight stages around the country had more than 3000 Japanese cyclists working the pedals, Posselt was to give the crowd a cultural food experience at the finish lines.

While waiting in line the hungry crowd was handed a leaflet about how they can fight the climate change or give a donation to charity.

“At one time there were more than 70 in the line, I was amazed. And the line kept on going for almost five hours,” says Fanny Posselt with a smile on her lip. “And every time I checked, people were actually reading the leaflet while waiting.”

Fanny Posselt does not believe that traditional campaigns can fully convince people to make a difference to the environment, and that is the reason she brought her Danish hotdogs.

She hopes that the Danish hotdog will be a cultural experience that will make the Japanese people remember the reason for setting up the environmental bicycle race. The goal is to inspire normal citizens to save energy on a daily basis.

“I have been raised to turn off the light and save on electricity and water, so for me it’s a normal thing to do.

I think everybody should do what they can to save the environment,” says the Fanny Posselt.

Due to Posselt’s strong environmental belief, she has equipped her hot dog stand to be quite unique.

On the roof, there are solar panels to run the diode light and the toaster, inwards there is a fuel cell that runs on methanol. She also relies on her bicycle to generate electricity during sunny less weather , but unfortunately that broke on a trip to China.

Every time Fanny Posselt takes the plane to a new destination, she buys CO2 emission quotas, so the energy she uses on traveling is saved somewhere else.

The concept for the world’s most traveled hot dog stand started back in 2003. Initially Posselt wanted to give attention to the traditional Danish hot dog stands, which faced tough competition from international fast food chains serving burgers and pizzas.

She toured Europe and received over 7000 euros in donations to a Danish children’s hospital. She then realized that a traveling hot dog stand had great potential to support charity in terms of donations and media attention. The last couple of years, the donations have gone towards building a children’s home in China.

“I have never had a lot of money to donate to charity, so instead I offer my time. I probably use about two or three months a year working with the hot dog stand.”

The hotdog stand has now been on the road for six years. In that time she has served thousands of hungry mouths.

Professional football players, musicians, actors, ambassadors, the Danish prime minister and many more, but there is one man she wants to serve more than anybody else.

Barack Obama will most likely attend the COP15 summit on climate change this December.

“If I can serve him a hot dog all I work for will get a lot of media coverage, and that will help it a lot, so I am working hard to get my stand at the summit. I got some good connections, but still many things have to form a synthesis, but I definitely think that it is realistic.”

Martin Kiil Poulsen is of Danish origin, but is inspired by cultures of several different countries. He has lived in four countries and has therefore seen how different people across the world acknowledge the challenges of climate change. In Martin Kiil Poulsen's journalistic career he has written numerous stories concerning alternative energy and the effects of global warming, especially for the Danish media.