Nabisco may crack and bring back a beloved cracker
The Nabisco Biscuit Co. appears about to crumble and resume production of its Crown Pilot cracker, although the company won't spell out the exact recipe for what it's going to do.

In May Nabisco stopped making the traditional crackers that New Englanders love to eat with chowder. The company said the market for the crackers, which the company and its predecessors had made for 204 years, was too small.

But a Chebeague Island resident launched a national campaign to get the company to change its mind, and it appears to be working. The New Jersey-based company will hold a press conference in Boston on Feb. 4 to make ''a postive announcement'' regarding the crackers, said Susan Burke of Edelman Public Relations in New York, which is handling the event for Nabisco.

Burke declined to say more on Friday about what the announcement entails. But James Pierotti, whose family owns and operates a cracker factory in Milton, Mass., the G.H. Bent Co., said he was told by Nabisco Friday that it will resume production of the crackers. The Bent company also makes pilot crackers, but not on the same scale as Nabisco did.

Donna Miller Damon, who led the fight to get the cracker back, hailed Nabisco's apparent change of heart.

''It shows that big companies do listen to consumers,'' Damon said. ''It's kind of a refreshing twist.''

Tess Nacelewicz, David Hench and Andrew D. Russell, staff writers, contributed to this column.