Pretzels baked in Hanover, Pennsylvania since 1909
✅ American Manufacturing
Where Snyder’s of Hanover products are made
Hanover, Pennsylvania
The flagship pretzel bakery in Hanover burned to the ground in December 1989 when an overhead heater malfunctioned. No one was hurt, production continued at the Granger Street facility, and the plant was rebuilt on the same site. It now runs to more than 400,000 square feet including a research and development laboratory.
Powered in part by its own sun
In 2011 the company built a 26-acre solar field — at the time the largest in Pennsylvania — with more than 15,000 panels supplying roughly 30% of the energy the factory and plant consume. It is an unusually concrete piece of infrastructure for a snack manufacturer.
Recipes older than the company’s current name
The Olde Tyme Pretzel was first made in 1909 by H.V. Warehime. The sourdough hard pretzel recipe came in with the 1963 purchase of the Bechtel Pretzel Company, developed by founder Bill Bechtel — and it is still the recipe consumers buy today.
Every production facility Snyder’s of Hanover names on its own site is in the United States — the flagship bakery in Hanover, Pennsylvania and a second plant in Goodyear, Arizona. The company does not publish an unqualified Made in USA claim covering ingredients, so we list it under American Manufacturing. The brand is owned by Campbell’s.
The story
The story starts before the pretzels. In the early 1920s Eda and Edward Snyder II were frying potato chips in a kettle at their summer home and selling them door-to-door, at fairs and at farmers’ markets, while their son William and his wife Helen baked angel food cakes for local stores. In 1924 the family combined the two efforts into Snyder’s Bakery.
The pretzel line reaches back further still — the Olde Tyme Pretzel dates to 1909 — and Snyder’s of Hanover counts that as its start. Modernization came in the 1940s with a new plant on Lafayette and Granger Streets and an automated fryer, and the company became one of the first snack makers to use aluminum foil bags to hold shelf life over long distances.
Ownership moved around the family and the town: the Berlin plant sold to a sister and brother-in-law in 1950, the Hanover plant sold to Hanover Canning in 1961 under Alan Warehime. His son Michael became president in 1972 and chairman in 1990, and in 1980 the family spun the snack operation off from Hanover Brands so each side could concentrate on its own trade. Sales that year were $15.8 million.
Then the fire. On a Saturday in December 1989 the flagship bakery burned down. Production shifted to Granger Street, employees ran the cleanup, and the building went back up — bigger. The decades since have been a steady run of line extensions: flavored pretzel pieces in 1992, chocolate Dips in 1998, certified gluten-free sticks from 2010, crackers in 2017.
Why they matter
Snyder’s of Hanover is a case study in what it looks like when a food company stays put. The pretzels are baked in the town the brand is named after, on the site of the bakery that burned down, by a company that chose to rebuild there rather than relocate to cheaper ground.
That decision is easy to underrate. A fire is the moment a manufacturer’s real commitments become visible, because every constraint is suddenly off — the building is gone, the insurance is paid, and nothing forces the plant to go back where it was. Hanover got its bakery back and then some.
The company is now part of a much larger parent, which is worth stating plainly rather than glossing. But the Pennsylvania plant is still there, still the flagship, and still large enough to anchor a local workforce — and a 26-acre solar field is not the sort of capital a company sinks into a site it plans to leave.
Featured products
Browse Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels, pieces and snack packs available now in the Buy American store.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels made?
At the flagship bakery in Hanover, Pennsylvania — more than 400,000 square feet of processing, packaging, warehousing and R&D — and at a second plant in Goodyear, Arizona opened in 1998.
How old is Snyder’s of Hanover?
The company dates itself to 1909, the year H.V. Warehime first made the Olde Tyme Pretzel. The family businesses that became Snyder’s Bakery combined in 1924.
Who owns Snyder’s of Hanover?
The brand is owned by Campbell’s. The Warehime family ran it for decades after buying the Hanover plant in 1961 and spinning the snack operation off from Hanover Brands in 1980.
What happened to the original bakery?
It burned down on 2 December 1989 after an overhead heater malfunctioned. Nobody was injured, pretzel production continued at the Granger Street facility, and the plant was rebuilt and expanded on the same site.