Thursday, May 3, 2018

Snyder’s of Hanover (Pretzels Baby!)


If you like to see production line factory tours (and I do!) this tour is worth the trip.


There are 2 frustrating problems with this tour. 

One is that there are no cameras allowed.  I knew this before we got there but I was still extremely disappointed to not be able to take pictures.  Seeing millions (maybe billions) of tiny pretzels whizzing around on conveyor belts was so much fun!  I couldn’t stand not getting photos for the blog.  They wouldn’t even let me take pictures inside the gift shop/store.

The second problem is that the tour is only 30 minutes long.  They give tours every 30 minutes and our guide, Kathy, rushed through the tour.  It could easily have lasted 45-60 minutes and I would have never been bored.  Kathy had a lot of information to give us and (I didn’t ask if I could) I tried to take notes but she was just rushing through it.

This evacuation map was right by the door outside the store.  It gives you some idea of the building layout.


The Snyder company was started in 1909.  This building was built in 1987 and is 450,000 square feet.  The building was obviously built with the thought of giving tours in mind.  There are lots of windows to see into the factory.  We also saw the sandwich pretzels coming out of the ovens and heading to the area that cheese would be sandwiched in and the tortilla chip line. 



For the small pretzels the dough is pressed through a die.  The larger pretzels are robotically twisted.  Even though the company has 6000 employees - company wide, they use many robots and machines.  They run 24/7 with Thanksgiving day and Christmas day off.

We saw the Work in Progress Warehouse, the Finish Warehouse, the Packing Room, the Oven Room, and the Fried Foods Room.

100 tons of salt is used per month.
350,000 pounds of flour is used per month.

The small pretzels take 45 minutes from start to finish and 1.2 million are made in 1 hour.

The #1 seller is the Sourdough Hard Pretzel.

There is so much more to this tour than I was able to remember!  We each received 2 tiny bags of pretzels at the end of the tour.


I thought the tour was magnet worthy.


We bought a few snacks at the end of the tour.


If you can stand to not take pictures - this tour is worth a detour.


6 comments:

  1. I would have loved to have seen little pretzels everywhere on conveyer belts! I also find it very frustrating to not be able to take pictures - especially when they also don't allow note taking (looking at you Boeing!!). It was still a delightful blog and I'll add it to our York list!

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  2. It is "on the list" worthy!

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  3. We are always looking for stuff to visit while we see the grandkids. Thanksfor so many great ideas.

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  4. They would probably get a kick out of it!

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  5. Who knew pretzel making was such a secret enterprise. Good thing they didn't check to see if you were wired or had a hidden camera in your hat.

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  6. Seems like anyone could get a job there and find out all the secrets. I'm just glad they offered the tours.

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