This April celebrate National Soft Pretzel Month with SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzels & J&J Snack Foods Corp. J&J Snack Foods has been the soft pretzel category leader, and a major contributor in growing and expanding the soft pretzel business for over 30 years, creating America’s Favorite Soft Pretzel. J&J Snack Foods manufactures over 1 billion soft pretzels a year – almost 3 million soft pretzels a day!
 
Although the exact origin of the soft pretzel is unknown, the most common story dates back to 610 A.D. A monk in southern France (or northern Italy) was baking and had some unused dough. In a creative way, he took a strip of dough and formed it into the shape of a child’s arms folded in prayer. He decided that it would be a delicious reward to children who successfully learned their prayers, and called his bread like snack “pretiola”, meaning “reward” in Latin. 
 
The “pretiola”, or as the Germans and Austrians called it “bretzel”, made its way to an American baker through a hobo. Julius Sturgis was an apprentice working in a bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania. One day while he was working, a hobo came into the bakery and offered the head baker his “bretzel” recipe for a free meal. The baker fed him out of pity, but discarded the recipe. Julius took the recipe and developed the first “pretzel.” Today he is known to be the founder of the first commercial pretzel bakery in the United States. 
 
SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzel products are recognized and enjoyed nationally in both foodservice and retail outlets. SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzels, SUPERPRETZEL® SOFTSTIX, SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzel Bites, and SUPERPRETZEL® Pretzelfils® filled soft pretzel sticks are available in your grocers’ freezer. Looking for a snack with a twist? Add melted cheese, salsa, Dijon mustard or cream cheese to your favorite SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzel product. Delicious, nutritious and fun to eat, SUPERPRETZEL® Soft Pretzels are the perfect anytime treat!
 
For fun facts, serving suggestions, recipes, money saving coupons and much more visit www.superpretzel.com. Additional questions? Call 888-JJSNACK ext. 750. 
 
J&J Snack Foods Corp. (NASDAQ: JJSF) manufactures an expanding variety of nutritional snack foods to the food service and retail supermarket industries.  Its principal products include frozen soft pretzels under SUPERPRETZEL®, Pretzel Fillers® and other brand names; ICEE® frozen beverages; LUIGI’S® Real Italian Ice and MAMA TISH’S Premium Italian Ices; frozen juice bars under the Minute Maid®, CHILL®, Barq’s®, and SHAPE UPS® brand names; TIO PEPE’S® churros™; THE FUNNEL CAKE FACTORY® funnel cakes; and cookies under the READI-BAKE®, Mrs. GoodCookie® and CAMDEN CREEK® brands.