The Federal Pretzel Baking Company of South Philadelphia was the first large-scale mass production soft pretzel manufacturer in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

History

The Federal Pretzel Baking Company began with the Nacchio family's small bakery, which they grew into a large-scale manufacturing business of soft pretzels, using a secret recipe.Philly.com Online Daily News January 23, 1991 "Pretzel Recipes To Die For Arm-twisting Won't Force These Bakers To Part With Their Secrets"
/ref> :1922 :Maria and Giuseppe Nacchio owned a small

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bread Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...

bakery where Maria made baked-style soft pretzels.Philly.com online Daily News September 29, 1986 "South Philly's First Family Of Pretzels"
/ref> The bakery was located in the heart of an

neighborhood, in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west."." ''City of Philadelphia''. Retrieved November 8, ...

. During the 1920s, her son, Edmund, saw a business opportunity with the popularity of the soft pretzel and the family recipe. He started a factory to bake them in larger quantities. He combined the manual skills of workers hand-twisting the pretzels with a conveyor system of equipment, imported from Germany, that moved the pretzels to a soaking solution and through baking ovens. The mass production operation thereby became the Federal Pretzel Baking Company. :1940 :The

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consulted with the American Institute of Baking and other advanced bakers of the United States of America, including the Nacchio family, to address the shortage of

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

flour. During the

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, alternative ingredients and baking techniques were developed. One alternative included using

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

flour as a percentage substitute to create a mix of flour(s) for bread and other bakery goods like pretzels. :1947 :The company was founded by four brothers. Following the death of Edmund in 1947, Joseph, Carmine, and Anthony continued to run the company. :1963 :The record for the largest pretzel ever baked was baked by Joseph Nacchio of the Federal Pretzel Baking Company. It weighed and measured five feet across. This record was repeated, with a four-foot pretzel from Federal appearing in the 1963 Hollywood

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production of ''

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''. :1978 :First mass-machine-produced soft pretzel was extruded at seven per second with 60,000 baked daily by Federal Pretzel Baking Company. The original 1922 recipe continued to be used, but they no longer made hand-twisted pretzels with the signature overlapping knot. :1990 :Second-generation daughters Anna Nacchio and Norma Nacchio-Conley (with her son Thomas) opened PretzCo, a pretzel-baking business independent of Federal Pretzel Baking Company. It was located several city blocks away. They included a backroom exhibit to document the family story as presented by the daughters of the founders. They introduced their own modernized recipe that was less crusty and softer. :1992 :The Pretzel

Museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

The Independence Hall Association in Historic Philadelphia 1995 online
/ref> was opened by Nacchio family member Norma Conley and partner Jean Collins
/ref> to highlight the area’s preference for Federal Pretzel Baking Company's distinctly shaped pretzels. There were three locations for the museum: it was first located at Washington and Delaware Avenue, then at 3rd and Markets streets next to Ben Franklin's historic house, and finally a fully designed museum was located just north of the historic district of the center of

. All of the locations offered full tours of the bakery led by family member Lori Conley and family friend Helene Collins, culminating with the opportunity to twist your own pretzel. Champion hand pretzel twister Helen Hoff demonstrated how to produce 57 pretzels per minute at the first museum dedicated to the Philadelphia soft pretzel. The museum was closed prior to 1995. :2000 :The family-owned and -operated company, maintained by various family members for four generations, was sold to a conglomerate business, J & J Snack Foods Corporation Pennsauken Township, NJ, in 2000.

References

External links

Official web site

Phillyhistory- Soft Pretzels: A Philadelphia "Culinary" Tradition Published: August 9, 2007

Phillyhistory- 1934 photo of Federal Pretzel Baking Company truck with street vendors outside of South Philadelphia High School archived record on file City of Philadelphia, Records Department.
{{Philadelphia Corporations Bakeries of Pennsylvania Manufacturing companies based in Philadelphia Food and drink companies based in Philadelphia Cuisine of Philadelphia Pretzels