Rold Gold Pretzels

Rold Gold brand pretzels are one of the most recognizable pretzel brands that are sold in the US. The product is currently owned by Frito-Lay but was the brainchild of a totally different company back in 1917. Pretzels are a snack that has been around for nearly as long as snacking has been a concept. It would be hard to find anyone who has not enjoyed pretzels at least once or twice in their life.

If Rold Gold pretzels are your favorite pretzel brand, you might want to know some more about the history of this classic snack. These little crispy, crunchy, salty snacks have been around for more than 100 years and have been a staple snacking option for many people for generations.

History

As mentioned before, the product that would become Rold Gold Pretzels was first sold in 1917 by the American Cone and Pretzel Company. Lorraine Schumaker founded the company in Philadelphia, and for the first half of the century, the business was family-run and maintained.

The business also sold other kinds of products, and the family-owned a pimento-canning plant as well. However, when canning and packaging expectations changed in the 1950s, the Schumaker family felt it was time to get out of the business of selling food products. Rold Gold and Red Dot Foods Inc were going to be sold in 1960, but the deal fell through when the canning business went bankrupt. The principal owner of Red Dot actually committed suicide, leaving the two businesses in limbo without a clear path forward. Frito-Lay swooped in to buy the pretzel brand, and the rest is history.

Rold Gold expanded under the care of the Frito-Lay company, and national sales were achieved with relative ease. Frito-Lay leaned into the history of the product, stating that Rold Gold was “America’s No 1. Pretzel”. This slogan still graces bags of Rold Gold pretzels.

Pretzels became very popular in the 90s. This was part of the healthy weight and fitness craze that accompanied consumers shying away from sugary sodas and sweet snacks. Pretzels products were sold to consumers as healthy snacks that were easy to take on the go with you. And this was not necessarily incorrect when compared to some of the other snacking options that were competing with pretzels in the same space.

Nearly any kid that grew up in the 90s remembers having pretzels in their lunch many days out of the week, and most vending machines offered up various kinds of pretzel products to those with some change in hand. The advent of smaller, snacking-size bags of all kinds of chips and pretzels also made it easy for these kinds of products to end up in school lunches, kid’s meals, and more. It’s hard to imagine a time when snacking wasn’t more focused on salty treats than sweets, but until the late 90s, this was mostly the case.

Without a sudden spate of interest and concern over the sugar content of various products marketed to children, which began in the early 90s, many people would probably still be reaching for a Snickers bar when they missed lunch instead of a bag of chips. Candy bars were sold as meals up until the late 50s, and Snickers and various other candy products had been able to reassert that this was a good use for their product in the 80s and early 90s.

While snacking can be bad for your health in general, there is probably no really good argument that would state that a candy bar is better for you to snack on than some pretzels. The healthy food lobby has made many inroads in the sugar content of things like cereal and snack bars, but pretzels still win the day when it comes to included sugars and added flavoring that is full of preservatives.

There is an entire range of Rold Gold pretzel products these days that you can enjoy. The name of the product was actually intended to indicate that the pretzels tasted like butter and practically melted in your mouth. This moniker means less these days, as snacking has changed a lot, and people expect various items to taste in a certain way when they pick them up off the supermarket shelf. However, in the early days of pretzel-making and widely-sold snack products, it was essential to be clear about what consumers were getting inside each bag.

While the buttery flavor of the classic Rold Gold pretzel is not always included in each variety of Rold Gold pretzels today, you can still count on each variety being tasty and spot-on with its flavors. The buttery classic pretzels are probably still most people’s favorite version of this snack, but Frito-Lay has always believed in offering additional varieties of each of its products. 

Today you can enjoy cheddar, honey wheat, and the original recipe, and these various flavors come in different shapes and sizes. There are tiny pretzels, pretzel rods, pretzel sticks, and even pretzel hearts sold in the Rold Gold lineup. There are few pretzel snacks that are so fun to eat and so flavorful.

Livery

Rold Gold pretzels have actually always been marketed in a fairly simple way. The blue and gold color of the snack bags is classic, and this part of the livery for these pretzels has not changed much since they were first sold. No matter what size the bags of pretzels that you are buying, there are almost always pictures of the variety of the snack located on the front of the bag. This could be twists, sticks, or rods, but you will know right away which kind of pretzel you are getting.

The larger bags usually have a band of yellow coloring at the top that indicates the Rold Gold logo in dark blue. The lettering is classic, simple, and clean. The bottom is bright blue or might be color-coded red for the cheddar varieties. Honey Wheat has a purple band on the bag, and Rods are indicated with a green band.

In the middle of the two bands of color is a picture of the product that is inside the bag. This might be a pile of tiny twists, original twists, or sticks or rods. The larger bags also indicate that the bag is “one pound” of pretzels. Some of the bags still indicate that these pretzels are the no 1. Pretzel brand in the US as well.

Limited edition bags and varieties are sometimes brought to market around the holidays so you might see a bag or two in your store that has a Christmas ribbon with some indication about a charity that each purchase benefits. This is one of the things that Frito-Lay does nearly every Christmas season to give back, and it is one of the best reasons to buy their products during the holidays.

The newest bags of product indicate that the bags are a “new look” but they are very much like the way that the livery has appeared for generations. Being sure about what you are getting is always key with a classic brand like this one. Frito-Lay has been good for years about making sure that their brands and products have great instant recognition, and you will probably hardly notice a difference between the old bags and the new ones.

Logo

Varieties:

• Tiny Twists
• Tiny Twists Cheddar
• Rods
• Thins
• Thins Original
• Thins Cheddar
• Tiny Twists Original
• Tiny Twists Cheddar
• Braided Honey Wheat Sticks
• Heartzels
• Sticks Original
• Sticks Cheddar
• Pretzel Chips – discontinued
• Cracker Barrel Cheddar – discontinued

There are few pretzel brands that offer anything other than sticks or pretzel twists to consumers. There is something really delightful about the crunchy snap of the thinner products in the family of Rold Gold products. Kids love the unique shape of varieties like the Heartzel or the fun of enjoying cheddar-flavored snacking.

While there are other brands that bring out unique flavors for holidays or experiment with new flavors all the time, Rold Gold has always stood for something that you could predict and expect. After all, if something is excellent, why change it? No matter which of the various shapes of Rold Gold you buy or which of the few unique flavor options you pick out, you can count on the crunchy, salty, delicious aspect of the original beloved pretzel shining through.

Ingredients

• Enriched Flour (wheat, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
• Salt
• Corn oil
• Corn syrup
• Ammonium carbonate
• Malt extract
• Yeast

This is probably one of the simplest recipes out there for snack products these days. You might see a few differences between the Cheddar and the Honey Wheat recipes, but the base recipe for all of the products is the same.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	30 pretzels (50g)	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving
Calories	200
Calories from Fat	18
Total Fat	2g	3%
Saturated Fat	0.4g	2%
Trans Fat	0g
Cholesterol	0mg	0%
Sodium	790mg	33%
Total Carbohydrates	41g	14%
Dietary Fiber	2g	8%
Sugars	1g
Protein	4g
Calcium		2%
Iron		15%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet.

Pictures

Ads:

A 1995 Rold Gold ad with Jason Alexander and a very cute dog:

Another Jason Alexander ad:

A Rold Gold ad from the early 2000s for a Cracker Barrel Cheddar version of the treat:

An 80s ad focused on how pretzels are good for kids: