Truly Southern Candies and Confections makes four flavors of Pretzel Crunch in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator. The products are sold in 34 Associated Grocers stores in three states, including Louisiana. Pictured counterclockwise from right are James McAdams, Linda McAdams, Karen Daigle and Nancy McAdams. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Linda McAdams drizzles colored chocolate over a pan of Tiger Pretzel Crunch on Aug. 5 in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

James McAdams slides a pan of Pretzel Crunch onto a rack on Aug. 5 in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator, where he, his wife and sister-in-law produce and package Truly Southern’s lineup of four products. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Nancy McAdams, left, and Karen Daigle break pans full of Truly Southern Tiger Pretzel Crunch into smaller pieces on Aug. 5 in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator. She is Linda and James McAdams’ sister-in-law and is among their many relatives who come to the incubator to help make the Pretzel Crunch. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Karen Daigle breaks a pan full of Truly Southern Tiger Pretzel Crunch into smaller pieces on Aug. 5 in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator. Daigle came up with the recipe for the Pretzel Crunch nearly 30 years ago and now helps her sister, Linda McAdams, part-time to make commercial-size batches in the Food Incubator. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

Nancy McAdams pours cranberries into a kettle of melted white chocolate for a batch of Truly Southern’s cranberry-almond flavored Pretzel Crunch on Aug. 5. Truly Southern makes four flavors of Pretzel Crunch in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator. Photo by Olivia McClure/LSU AgCenter

News Release Distributed 08/06/15

BATON ROUGE, La. – Some people turn to family recipes for comfort during stressful times. Others, like Linda McAdams, turn them into a new career.

When McAdams was laid off in 2013, she interviewed for several jobs but was rejected from all of them. Then, she realized, “maybe what we needed to do was right in front of us all this time.”

For about 30 years, McAdams and her sister, Karen Daigle, had been making a salty-sweet treat using crushed pretzels and melted chocolate. Daigle had come up with the recipe, and her family and friends loved it.

The sisters have since made so much of what they call Pretzel Crunch over the years that they “could do it left-handed,” McAdams said.

Soon after losing her job, McAdams remembers hearing people say the phrase “leap of faith” several times in one week. So she took a leap of faith of her own, asking Daigle to help turn Pretzel Crunch into a business.

They joined the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator months later in July 2014. In just a year, Truly Southern Pretzel Crunch became one of the incubator’s most popular products. It is now sold in 34 Associated Grocers stores in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi.

“We tell anybody and everybody where we make it,” McAdams said. “That’s a huge selling point. So many people are so interested in local, and they want to support local businesses. The minute you tell them we make it here locally, they’re like ‘Really?’ and when you say the AgCenter Food Incubator, they’re like ‘Wow.’”

When the sisters first came to the Food Incubator, they worked under the brand name Truly Scrumptious. Now it’s called Truly Southern – a nod to their roots as the product spreads past Louisiana’s borders.

The sisters and McAdams’ husband, James McAdams, make four kinds of Pretzel Crunch – original white chocolate, Tiger white chocolate, cranberry almond and peanut butter, which just launched last week. They are planning on more, plus gift boxes for the holidays. McAdams said she expects the purple- and gold-striped Tiger variety to be in high demand come LSU football season.

Unlike most incubator tenants, whose recipes must be adjusted by food scientists for shelf stability, the Pretzel Crunch recipe was left virtually unchanged. The quantities, however, skyrocketed along with demand.

“We did our first test batch, to our first full batch, to our first farmers market, to our first store shelves all in a month,” McAdams said.

At home, the sisters made batches of Pretzel Crunch using one or two pounds of chocolate at a time. Now, they use as much as 13 pounds of chocolate in each batch they make at the incubator, and often they make six or seven batches per day.

James McAdams said they’re hoping to move Pretzel Crunch production to a co-packer to help keep up with rising demand. Right now, the whole process is still done by hand in the incubator’s kitchen, including bagging and labeling.

“When we first started the business, we didn’t know how much it was going to take off,” he said. “We figured it would stay local. Here we are in three states and more to come. Now we’d love to see it go nationwide.”

The family also sells their confection at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market in downtown Baton Rouge, where they often run into other Food Incubator tenants. The market also offers a chance to talk to their ever-growing customer base, Linda McAdams said.

“It’s surreal to be selling it to people I haven’t met and personally given it to,” she said.

It takes a lot of hard work, but McAdams has a lot of help. Besides her husband and sister, everyone from her parents to a sister-in-law pitch in – a true family affair, she said.

They also have the support of their second family – Food Incubator staff and other tenants.

“You get motivated in here, producing it and knowing how well it’s been received in the public,” James McAdams said. “It boosts you. You might come in tired, and you certainly leave tired. But you know how well it’s been received.”

Olivia McClure