Business Matters:
Unique Snacks
With over a century of pretzel-making heritage, Unique Snacks has carved out a niche in the snack industry by staying true to its name. Known for its high-quality, simple-ingredient products and one-of-a-kind baking process, the company has evolved from a regional favorite into a growing national brand.
We spoke with Justin Spannuth, COO of Unique Snacks, about the company’s evolution, its commitment to quality and how innovation continues to shape its next chapter.
What role does Unique Snacks play in the snack industry?
We are mainly a pretzel manufacturer. We are set apart from the standard pretzel by our high-quality, better for you, simple ingredient products and our one-of-a-kind baking process. Our pretzels are unique in flavor and texture. We recently rebranded from Unique Pretzels to Unique Snacks to enter new categories of the snack industry. Our first foray into new snacks is our Puffzels product — a crunchy, baked, pretzel-shaped cheese curl. We want to stay away from commodity items unless we can put a unique spin on them that reaches a niche demographic.
What sets Unique Snacks apart?
Quality.
The people who love pretzels want the best version of them on the market. When they find us, they stay with us. We have very high customer retention — our customers value quality over all else and are very loyal.
How has Unique Snacks evolved since its inception?
Our legacy spans over 104 years. We started making pretzels in the late 1800s before incorporating as Unique Pretzel Bakery in 1921. We began with soft pretzels and slowly evolved to hard pretzels. We invented our iconic, original Splits pretzel product in the 1950s and became solely hard pretzels in the 1960s. We are rooted in southeastern Pennsylvania; in the ‘90s, we expanded into Philadelphia and South Jersey. Around 2008, we began to shift our model to become a national brand. Since 2012, we have grown 10 times the size and have reached across the country. We are not yet fully saturated — we want our products on every store shelf. There is tons of room to grow, but we are well on our way.
How does Unique Snacks play a part in the broader community?
We support our local community with products at many, many events. We participate in family business chambers and events, and I speak to young entrepreneurs at different events. We are also very involved industry-wide across the country in our trade association, SNAC International. We are very involved in our industry, industry affairs and relationships with snack brands across the country.
What impact has having the right banking partner had on your business?
Customers Bank believed in us when we were just a small business. Today, they provide the same exceptional partnership to us as a company that’s grown 10x in the past 10 years.
Our banking team has been an incredible supporting partner from the get-go. Back in 2012, we expanded to a new facility that was significantly larger than our previous one. Customers Bank’s partnership enabled our growth — without it, our expansion would have been much slower and more expensive over the long run.
What piece of advice would you give to other entrepreneurs for them to be successful?
Be very aware of yourself and your company. Know what you’re good at and what you’re not. Be aware of your business segment. Then, be strategic, be visionary, be patient.