Unique Snacks expanding its support of Folds of Honor

Unique Snacks has announced plans to expand its participation in Folds of Honor — a program that supports fallen or disabled military and first responders by providing educational scholarships to their spouses and children.

The sixth-generation, 102-year-old family-owned and operated pretzel manufacturer in Muhlenberg Township has been a supporter of Folds of Honor since 2018, first working with the local chapter and then through its corporate program.

“The spouses and dependents of our military members and first responders are often forgotten when a parent or guardian has made the ultimate sacrifice or been severely disabled in the line of duty,” Justin Spannuth, chief operating officer of Unique Snacks, said in a statement. “It is our responsibility as positive members of the community to extend a hand to them and provide them support when they have suffered and lost so much.”

The company is making a change to the program, adjusting its Folds of Honor packaging of the company’s Original Splits pretzels.

For 2024, Unique will replace all Original Splits packages with the specially branded Folds of Honor packages.

“And that is the only package that will be available from us for the patriotic season — Memorial Day to Labor Day,” Spannuth said in a recent interview. “One-hundred percent of our sales of Splits for the summer will be Folds of Honor packages.”

Previously, the branded packaging was used with a separate UPC for participating retailers, with non-branded packaging sent to all others.

The change is expected to allow more retailers to participate in the program, increase awareness of Folds of Honor and increase Unique’s donation to the program in 2024.

To bring the specially packaged product into stores required retailers to approve the separate UPC, which isn’t always easy for retailers to do, according to Norman Cross, director of sales for Unique Snacks. He added that there were a lot of retailers who wanted to participate but just couldn’t make it work due to the logistical issues.

“We thought if we just changed the UPC to the main UPC and make it our summer package, it will simplify the program, it will expand support to the veterans and first responder and then ultimately it will give back more,” he said.

Cross is also chapter board member — director — Anheuser-Busch Relations for the Eastern PA/NJ Chapter of Folds of Honor.

Unique Snacks donates 5 cents to Folds of Honor from each specially packaged Original Splits sold from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

In 2022, the company sold about 252,000 specially branded packages through participating retailers, resulting in a donation of more than $12,500 to Folds of Honor. Since the inception of Unique Snacks’ annual Folds of Honor campaign, the business has raised close to $50,000.

Spannuth said the company expects to sell a minimum of 1.25 million of the specially marked packages during the campaign period.

“We estimate more than $60,000 in donations next year just based on the 5 cents per package sale,” he said, adding that is a very conservative estimate.

The projection, the company said, doesn’t account for any sales growth of the product. If that projection becomes a reality, the company’s 2024 donation to Folds of Honor would meet or exceed its five-year donation total to date.

“Supporting our military is something we’re really proud of as a company,” Spannuth added. “We like to hire veterans when can and like to support the military and first responders. It really plays to who we are and our family culture. Showing that appreciation, it is more than a retail program, it’s more than marketing — it means a lot to us.”

Folds of Honor is a national nonprofit that uses 90% of all donated funds to create K-12 and higher education scholarships for the families of wounded and fallen heroes. Since 2007, Folds of Honor has awarded about 52,000 scholarships, 41% of which were awarded to minority recipients.

Shoppers looking to show their support for the spouses and children of fallen military members and first responders can find the specially branded Folds of Honor Original Splits in their favorite grocery store, on Amazon, or at UniqueSnacks.com from May through August. The specially branded packages are also available at all military base commissaries in the U.S. throughout the year, through a partnership with the Defense Commissary Agency.