The companies' largest competitor is Frito-Lay, which is owned by PepsiCo. Frito-Lay's revenues in North America alone were $12.5 billion last year, according to financial documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Diamond believes Snyder's decided to buy Utz because of the poor economy, and the companies' realization that they needed to merge to compete with larger rivals. "It's a good move on Snyder's part," he said.
Officials from both companies said they did not expect job cuts as a result of the deal.
"As we develop our expanded portfolio of brands, we believe this will lead to additional sales and manufacturing jobs over time as we grow both brands and expand the new company," Carl E. Lee, Jr., Snyder's president and chief executive, said in a statement.
George Neiderer, an Utz spokesman, said he could not comment while the FTC reviews the deal.
But Diamond predicted that there would have to be job cuts as the two companies merge some operations.
Both companies have provided factory jobs in the Hanover area for decades, even as they grew increasingly automated. Hanover had about 15,000 residents, according to the 2000 Census.
Jason Policastro, 28, who works in media relations for a law school in Washington, said he moved from Baltimore to the town with his parents when he was 10 years old. He knew others whose fathers worked in the snack factories, and he spent two summers during college working at Snyder's, making pretzels for $11 an hour.
"It's not a big town, but it's certainly a factory town, and these two were certainly the biggest," Policastro said. "They call Hanover the snack food capital of the world."
Snyder's and Utz have operated as independent, family-run businesses since the early 1900s, building well-known brands across the Baltimore region, which served as an early market. Snyder's, according to a company history, traces its roots to 1909, when founder Harry Warehime started the Hanover Pretzel Co. Its current chairman, Michael Warehime, is a relative.
In the 1960s, Hanover Pretzel bought another pretzel bakery and potato chip maker - Snyder's, which itself had started as a small family business - and remade itself as Snyder's of Hanover.
Snyder's now has 1,800 distribution routes nationwide, and production facilities in Hanover, Pa., Jeffersonville, Ind., and Goodyear, Ariz. In Maryland, the company has distribution facilities in Frederick and on the Eastern Shore.
