The Crown Pilot Cracker is off grocery shelves once again. Nabisco, the national cracker and cookie manufacturing company now owned by Kraft Foods, has ceased making the crackers, much loved by Mainers, particularly coastal dwellers who prefer it for chowder. Working Waterfront sounded the alarm in April, with only vague hints that the cracker might actually be on the way out. About five weeks ago, Donna Damon, the cracker’s Chebeague-based champion, received a tip via the Chebeague Methodist Ladies Aid. “Audrey Collins had asked someone at Hannaford and they told her. I happened to be talking to someone who was at their sewing circle and she told me.” Donna followed up and discovered that in fact, the Crown Pilot was no longer in production.
Eleven years ago with help from other Mainers notably humorist and aficionado of Maine regionalisms Tim Sample, Chebeague Islanders successfully lobbied Nabisco to resume making Crown Pilots, and they are now considering what to do. Even the New York Times sent a reporter to the island to collect reactions to the latest turn of events.
Damon and many other people think that this time Nabisco ought to relinquish the recipe so that someone else can manufacture the cracker, preferably here in Maine.
“If it is such a drain on Kraft food, one way to solve the problem would be for Nabisco to donate the recipe and molds to a Maine nonprofit to give to a business in Maine to make them,” she said. “There would be a tax incentive and provide an opportunity to create a fund with, for example, 25 cents from every box sold donated to the fund.”
Speaking as an individual and not as a trustee of the Island Institute, she suggested that the Institute might be the ideal organization to get the cracker recipe, “because they are trying to improve economic development along the Maine Coast,” Damon said.
According to the Times, Nabisco spokesperson Laurie Guzzinati said that the demand for the crackers had declined to half the demand of 12 years ago, even in the region with the most loyal customer base. Chef Ed Jarrett at the Chebeague Island Inn was hoping to improve that situation this summer. He developed new recipes using the crackers in seafood stuffing and chowders he planned to serve. He thought that the island’s connection to the cracker was a great marketing tool.
“We were having testings and tastings and everyone was loving it,” he said. “I ordered ten cases from Sysco but they told me they were gone.” He raced to the island store and bought the last available box. “It is just wrong for a company to do that,” Mr. Jarrett said about Nabisco.
Damon said, “At least they could have given us some warning so we could have hoarded them.” She claims she still has some, “but I am locking my doors,” she added.
Jarrett says he is holding on to the idea of using the cracker at the Inn. “If we can bring it back, I would do a huge campaign here,” he said.