Today’s soft pretzels range from snackable nuggets, bites and small knots to 10-oz items often found at a Bavarian beer hall during Oktoberfest.

Likewise, seasoned hard pretzels come in all shapes and sizes and often are a key component packaged snacks along with flavored tortilla chips, crackers, nuts and more.

As pretzels compete in other categories, the processes have adapted to add versatility that’s inspired in a panoply of new items.

“Flexible pretzel production lines offer the capability to bypass the lye bath stage, facilitating the production of both artisan and conventional bread,” said Felix Pang, robotic solutions specialist, ABI Ltd. “Software advancements have enhanced production line flexibility, enabling equipment to automatically adjust its settings when transitioning between recipes.”

Companies looking to diversify their portfolios can rely on a sheeted dough or even a cracker line to bake a pretzel-like snack.

“This type of pretzel product is ‘healthier’ as the recipe contains lower-fat items than traditional pretzels,” said Paolo Betto, application manager, snacks, hard-sweet biscuits and crackers, GEA Bakery. “The process requires a specially designed rotary cutting unit and a soda bath coating to give the usual dark appearance and fragrance that any pretzel product must have. Additionally, only one baking tunnel oven is required for this process.”

Stefan Praller, senior director, customer experience of Fritsch, a Multivac Group company, suggested bakeries can rely on the company’s robotic MultiTwist system to produce flavored bretzels, rings, braids and other baked goods by adapting the traditional pretzel production process.

“For us, it is a continuous development to be able to create new products again and again,” he said. “This means that new equipment tools are constantly being added but also that they can be changed quickly and easily to increase the flexibility of the line. For a new product, customers can use their existing MultiTwist systems. They just have to change the twisting tool and the twisting table.”

Variations in pretzel size also demand versatile production lines, sometimes with modular components. 

“The challenge with this product is to handle the 800-mm long strand to transfer it on a 650-mm wide infeed table to the twisting unit,” Praller explained. “For this, the strand must first be formed into a ‘U’ before it is then twisted into a pretzel.”

In the snack market, fillings in crunchy hard shells include everything from conventional cheddar cheese and nut butter to date paste and other fruit flavors, noted Nico Roesler, North American pretzel and snack equipment sales manager, Reading Bakery Systems.

In the baked goods market, the imagination is the only limit with extrusion technology that adds fillings to transform soft pretzels into handheld snacks, hot appetizers or even a quick, convenient breakfast for the road.

“We’ve seen a push for value-added, filled pretzels,” suggested John Giacoio, Rheon USA. “These include all sorts of fillings placed inside a soft, pretzel dough. The types of products are both sweet and savory. I live in the Philadelphia area and when you think about Philadelphia, two foods come to mind: soft pretzels and cheesesteaks. With Rheon co-extruders, it is a simple process to make a cheesesteak-filled soft pretzel in either a bite, stick or sandwich. The innovation doesn’t end here. It’s a simple process to add a favorite cheese or another filling to a soft pretzel bite or stick.”

He added that line extensions simply require changing the type of filling. Anything from pepperoni pizza to crab and cheese varieties can be created.

“If you think about the area of the country that you’re marketing toward, it’s a natural progression to come up with a filled pretzel that appeals to the masses,” Giacoio said. “If I were in Cincinnati, I would offer a chili-filled pretzel. In Buffalo, NY, a buffalo chicken-filled pretzel would hit the mark.”

Praller noted that Fritsch’s MultiTwist has continually undergone new developments as components such as servo motors and gripping tools advanced since the automatic pretzel twister made its commercial debut in 1998.

The company added small servo motors to the MultiTwist, which can be affordably installed and enable the gripper arms to be set to different positions to the exact millimeter to create single-strand braids, knots and other twisted goods.

With a rate of 2,000 pieces an hour, Praller said, the MultiTwist can be combined with up to 10 twisting modules to crank out up to 20,000 every 60 minutes, or 160,000 items on an 8-hour shift. It can also twist 1,200 larger, 10-oz pretzels each hour.\

He added that bakeries can integrate additional twisting modules into existing sheeting lines, enabling the operation to automate initially at a lower level and expand performance as volume may grow at a later date.

This article is an excerpt from the June 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Pretzel Processing, click here.