From sweets to chips to pretzels, Reading, Pennsylvania has something for everyone. Our chocolate manufacturers like Godiva and R.M. Palmer cover the sweet spectrum. Our salty snack space is occupied by Unqiue Pretzels, Tom Sturgis, Savor Street Food and Dieffenbach. We have pretzels that are hard, soft, thin, straight, twisted, salted, unsalted, whole grain… Well, Reading Pennsylvania (already known as the Pretzel Capital of the world) now offers one of the greatest diversities in chips! Yes, I said chips! With the recent expansion of Dieffenbach, we offer some of the tastiest and craziest chips around. We are home to sweet potato, root vegetable, sea salt, uglies (ugly potatoes turned into delicious chips), – all in a chip! We are lucky to have such diversity in our food manufacturing industry and even luckier that they produce some of the tastiest snacks around.
Our History
Greater Berks Development Fund helped facilitate the expansion of Unique Pretzels back in 2012. They built a new 35,000SF factory and 37,000SF warehouse with funding from the Department of Community and Economic Development. They were granted $8.5 million in tax-exempt bond financing. Food manufacturing is part of the culture of Greater Reading.
Dieffenbach’s Expansion
Dieffenbach’s Potato Chips latest production facility is officially live. The multi-million dollar project has been in the works for the past year and a half. The project includes both a new distribution center and additional production lines. In total, the new facility is 106,000 square feet and will house the company’s Direct Store Delivery operations, their national distribution for both company and private label brands, and a new state of the art manufacturing line that is capable of processing more than 15 million pounds of potatoes annually. 15 million pounds of potatoes translates to roughly 972,000,000 chips, or about 3 chips per person in the United States. With the recent growth of the business, the company is in need of 30-40 additional employees, with jobs available at both the Womelsdorf site and the new Bethel Facility. They are excited about the growth of their business because they truly enjoy making great snacks, and love being able to add more faces to the Dieffenbach team. Nevin states, “I’m the 3rd generation to run the business over the past 50+ years, and we want everyone that comes to work for us, to feel like they are part of our family.”
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Mike Marlowe, COO for the company said, “The growth of the company over the past few years is allowing us to create more opportunities for our existing team members as well as opportunities for people looking for a new career. The market has tremendous growth opportunities. We will continue to grow as fast as we can find the right people to join our team.”
To learn more about the opportunities for expansions, relocations and financing, contact Chris Witmer at CWitmer@GreaterReading.org or 610-898-7794.