June National Edition

There’s little, at least online, about Paramount’s early days. The original owners were the DiGiorgio family, according to David Zabludovsky. The bakery didn’t show up in searches at the Newark Public Library, the Newark History Society or the New Jersey Historical Society. David Zabludovsky was told by an employee of 50-plus years that deliveries were once made in horse and buggies. Today, 40 independently-owned trucks deliver Paramount’s bread to customers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Delaware. Shralin’s Pita started as a modest backyard operation in Springfield in 1984; in 1994 it bought Paramount Bakery, then located at Davenport Avenue and N. 8th St. Paramount had opened in 1924, and when Kiesel Zabludovsky and her husband, Shraga, bought the company, they kept Paramount’s breads and over the years added their own, moving operations several blocks to its current location. Shralin’s Pita (the name is a contraction of Shraga and Linda) partnered with Pechter’s in 1985, with the pita company moving its operation to Pechter’s Harrison location.

The machine that caught my eye, though, was the metal detector, which all bread passes through. “We want to make sure all the products we’re producing are safe,” David Zabludovsky, Linda and Shraga’s son, explains. The bakery is a United Nations of equipment: ovens from Italy, a slicer from Denmark, one production line from Germany, a baguette mixer from France. Paramount also supplies bread to 10 Blimpie locations, and also sells bread under its Bread City label, which can be found in Walmart and other stores.