J & J Snack Foods Corporation

J&J Snack Foods Corp.

Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: JJSF S&P 600 Component
Industry	Snack foods and beverages
Founded	1971
Headquarters	Pennsauken, New Jersey, U.S.
Key people	Gerald B. Shreiber, President/CEO
Revenue	$976 million USD (2015)
Net income	$70.2 million USD (2015)
Number of employees	3,400
Website	www.jjsnack.com

J&J Snack Foods Corporation (JJSF) is an American manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of branded niche snack foods and frozen beverages for the food service and retail supermarket industries. Headquartered in Pennsauken, NJ JJSF uses over 175 facilities for manufacturing, warehousing, and distributing located in 44 states, Mexico and Canada. The company is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market as “JJSF”, and serves both nation and international markets.

JJSF’s portfolio of products include soft pretzels, frozen beverages, frozen juice treats and desserts, stuffed sandwiches, burritos, churros, fruit pies, funnel cakes, cookies and bakery goods, and other snack foods and drinks. JJSF has a total of 25 brands with its principal brands in these product arenas are SUPERPRETZEL Soft Pretzels, PRETZEL FILLERS, ICEE, SLUSH PUPPIE, ARCTIC BLAST, TIO PEPE CHURROS, CALIFORNIA CHURROS, FUNNEL CAKE FACTORY FUNNEL CAKES, LUIGI’S REAL ITALIAN ICE, DADDY RAY’S fruit bars. and PHILLY SWILRL, WHOLE FRUIT, and MINUTE MAID frozen novelties.

Since the company’s CEO's, Gerald B. Shreiber, purchase of J&J Soft Pretzel company in 1971 it has seen 44 years of consecutive sales growth. This growth can be attributed to a strategy that emphasizes active development of new and innovative products, penetration into existing market channels and expansion of established products into new markets. The company is structured in three business groups: Food Service, Frozen Beverages, and Retail Supermarket.

In 1971, Gerald Shreiber, a father of three at the time, was shopping for a waterbed for his daughter. Shreiber struck up a conversation with the store’s owner who was discussing his investment loss in a soft pretzel company called J&J Soft Pretzel which went bankrupt. On September 27, 1971 Shreiber attended the Camden, NJ District Court’s bankruptcy auction and purchased J&J Soft Pretzel with a bid of $72,100. The company at the time had 8 employees and $400,000 of sales. In 1972, a West coast office opened up in Los Angeles, CA thus opening the company up to business across the United States. A year later SUPERPRETZEL Soft Pretzel is registered as a trademark and becomes the first official brand of JJSF. In 1978 JJSF sought out to expand its presence in the soft pretzel market through the acquisitions of Frampton Corp located in St. Louis, MO and Pretzel Man Corp located in Los Angeles, CA. The King sized pretzel was also introduced and began being sold in foodservice locations.

In 1981, Shreiber sought new possibilities for JJSF. He found what he was looking for in a canceled supply agreement with Whimsy Stores who at the time was selling churros. JJSF acquired some product inventory as a result of this and began the foundation of the churros segment of the company starting the brand TIO PEPE’s Churros. A year later, JJSF acquired exclusive rights to the AMF pretzel twister machines making the company a leader in the efficiency of soft pretzel manufacturing. In 1983, the acquisition of Bachman Soft Pretzel Co. added another manufacturing plant to JJSF’s list of facilities.