We often put out chips and crisps to provide a bit of distraction on exciting occasions – such as when they’re taking penalties during the current Euros football championship. One snack that has gained great popularity and worldwide fame – and not just in thrilling moments – comes from Austria: Soletti pretzel sticks.
The snacks were invented 75 years ago in the Zach bakery, where they originally used to make salted pretzels that were shaped by hand; when they started looking for ways to make production simpler and more efficient, they hit upon the idea of baking them as straight batons, rather than curling them into pretzels. The choice of name was influenced both by the use of salt as an ingredient and an enthusiasm for Italian sun, and Soletti hit the market in 1949.
The recipe for the pretzel sticks is highly confidential and has never changed, despite the shift from palm oil to rapeseed oil. Even the length of the sticks has remained the same at 11 cm (although there is now also a super-sized version that is twice as long) and the snack is still manufactured in Austria. Even the main ingredients, flour (12,000 tons/year) and salt, are sourced 100% domestically.
People enjoy the pretzel sticks all over the world, however, and Soletti are exported to some 40 countries – which goes some way to explaining why 50 million of the crunchy snacks are freshly baked every day.
