Full disclosure. The author is a proud, native Pennsylvanian and a huge fan of Utz’s pretzels and potato chips. Mmmmm, tasty. There is a good reason for this. Pennsylvanians instinctively love chips and pretzels. It’s in their DNA. In fact, there is an unconfirmed rumor that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has officially enshrined chips and pretzels as one of the basic food groups, equal to fruits, vegetables, and Philly cheesesteaks. I need to check that out. In the meantime, here’s some startling evidence to confirm what I’ve said about DNA.
IMAGE OF NORMAL DNA
IMAGE OF A PENNSYLVANIAN’S DNA
In 1921, Bill Utz quit his job at a shoe factory in Hanover, Pennsylvania. With a $300 dollar investment, Bill and his wife Salie (not a misspelling) set up shop as a two-person operation in a summer kitchen behind their home in Hanover. Salie had good knowledge of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking and used hand-operated equipment to make about fifty pounds of potato chips per hour. While Salie stayed home making chips, Bill delivered them to “mom and pop” grocery stores and farmers markets in Hanover and the Baltimore MD area.
Today, Utz Quality Foods, Inc. is the largest privately owned snack food company in the U.S. It has over 2,200 employees and annual revenues of over $400 million dollars with distribution centers stretching from Maine to Louisiana. That’s a perfect snapshot of how successful free enterprise works.
Utz is certainly not a unique story of American capitalism. It has happened thousands of times in our nation’s history. But sometimes we need to be reminded that people like Bill and Salie Utz created something very beneficial not just to themselves, but to our country. Private sector jobs which supported the employees and their families. Personal income, real estate, sales, and corporate taxes which supported the nation, Pennsylvania, and the local community. Products which consumers freely bought and enjoyed. Major purchases from farmers who grew the crops and from manufacturers who made the equipment used by Utz.
Another important feature of Bill and Salie’s adventure with capitalism is that it didn’t cost anyone else a nickel. They took the risk, they used their own money, and they used their own labor to kick start this successful enterprise. As a result, over the nine decades Utz has existed, literally billions of dollars have been pumped into the U.S. economy and government treasuries.
At the end, there’s a link to the historical timeline of Utz Quality Foods. As you read through the history of the company, I think you will be struck, as I was, about the long term positive economic impact Utz has had, from the enormous expansion of their manufacturing facilities to an explosion in the number of employees. Just from one company. And yes, starting with Bill and Salie Utz, the Utz family did build that.
www.utzsnacks.com/about_history.html
