Murray Lender, bagel pioneer

HARTFORD, CONN. - Murray Lender, who helped turn his father's small Connecticut bakery into a national company credited for introducing bagels to many Americans, has died in Florida. He was 81.

Lender, perhaps best known from promoting Lender's Bagels in TV commercials, died Wednesday at a hospital in Miami from complications from a fall he suffered at his home 10 weeks ago, his wife, Gillie Lender, said on Thursday. The couple lived in Aventura, Fla., and also kept a home in Connecticut.

Lender's father, Harry Lender, immigrated to the United States from Lublin, Poland, in 1927 and opened what would become Lender's Bagels in an 800-square-foot bakery in New Haven. Two years later, he had his wife and two sons, Hymen and Samuel, brought over from Poland.

At the time, bagels in America were sold mostly to Jewish families.

Murray Lender was born in 1930, and four years later Harry Lender bought a 1,200-square-foot bakery in New Haven. Hymen, Samuel, Harry and a younger brother, Marvin, all went on to work for the family business. Murray would serve as the company's chief executive and Marvin as president.

The Lenders say they were the first to begin selling bagels in packages to supermarkets in 1955. In 1960, two years, the Lenders say they started freezing their bagels so they could ship them outside of New Haven without worrying about them becoming stale - the first company to do so. The frozen bagel would make its way to households across the country that had never had them.

The Lenders sold the family business to Kraft Foods in 1984. Pinnacle Foods Group LLC has owned Lender's Bagels since 2003.