By Gus G. Sentementes , gus.sentementes@baltsun.com|October 23, 2009
For almost a century, two homegrown companies have dominated the small Pennsylvania town of Hanover: Snyder's, famous for its pretzels, and Utz, an expert in potato chips. Sometimes the family-owned companies competed with new products, but for the most part, they co-existed - until this week.
After squaring off against other snack food makers in the fight for dominance on supermarket shelves and in the cupboards of Maryland consumers, the companies have announced a plan to join forces. Together, they would have more than $800 million in sales and 4,400 workers.
Snyder's of Hanover Inc., the country's largest maker of pretzels, said it would buy the smaller Utz Quality Foods Inc. for an undisclosed amount, pending a review of the sale by the Federal Trade Commission.
The companies, little more than an hour's drive northwest of Baltimore, have long supplied consumers here with pretzels and potato chips, as well as cheese curls and O-Ke-Doke popcorn.
The cartoonish "Utz girl" also is a well-recognized symbol - a local jeweler recently advertised engagement rings on billboards that featured her and the Natty Boh character.
Officials at the privately held companies would not comment on details of the deal and did not disclose any major changes. Both have factories in Hanover and extensive distribution networks for selling snacks across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
"We're basically a pretzel company and they're basically a potato chip company, and we truly haven't looked at ourselves that closely as being competitors," said John Bartman, a Snyder's spokesman.
Plans for the companies' extensive product lines of pretzels and chips were not detailed, though company officials said in a statement that the Utz brand would continue.
Jeremy Diamond, a Baltimore-based retail and wholesale consultant whose family used to operate supermarkets in Maryland, said the Utz brand is "so deeply entrenched" that it would make sense for Snyder's to continue to sell those product lines - at least in the Mid-Atlantic region.
"Utz has been around here for a long time," Diamond said. "That's what consumers know. You like to stick with what the consumer knows and what is familiar."
Snyder's has 2,250 employees and had sales of $652 million last year; Utz has 2,200 employees and had revenue of $166 million last year, according to Hoovers.com.
