It was a plain little under-the-radar cracker, but the quiet demise of Ak-mak has saddened fans far beyond its Central California birthplace.
The crisp sesame cracker, made in the Fresno area for more than 70 years, has disappeared from store shelves and online platforms in recent weeks. The bakery’s website remains live, with no mention of the shutdown, but there has been a low buzz on social media from devotees realizing that Ak-mak is no more.
Reached by the Fresno Bee, Tanny Soojian — of the third of Ak-mak’s four generations of Armenian-American proprietors — reportedly said simply, “I got old and closed it.”
The family moved to California in 1936 and established a bakery specializing in Armenian breads and crackers, the company’s website says. The Ak-mak cracker’s selling point was its simplicity — whole wheat, low fat, made with honey rather than refined sugar. A paean on the foodie website Epicurious describes it as “sturdy” and “nourishing,” and (though exaggerating its longevity) sums up: “That Ak-Mak has remained popular for centuries will only surprise people who haven’t had it.”
In recent years, its Sanger factory, between a used-car lot and a tire store, sent out the yellow-and-blue boxes of crackers to purveyors including Safeway, Raley’s, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, New York’s Gristedes and the cult favorite Southern California grocer Erewhon.
The cracker became an asterisk to a Los Angeles-area homicide case in 2015. Sparkle Soojian, who claimed to be an heiress to the Ak-mak business, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after a former roommate’s ex-boyfriend died in her Glendale home.