OMG! Pretzels brings unique stride to snack category

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OMG! Pretzels brings unique stride to snack category

26 Sep 2025

Annie Hollon

Annie Hollon is a journalist, copywriter and social media strategist from the Dallas, Texas area. She found a love for magazine writing during her time at the University of Alabama where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in public relations and English. Beyond writing, you can find her expanding her library, attempting to teach herself the guitar and trying new hobbies.

KANSAS CITY, MO — Snacking is hot right now. Circana insights reflect that despite a wavering economy and tighter purse strings, nearly half of US consumers snack three or more times a day. Today’s shoppers are also in search of more unique and convenient offerings with stand-out flavor combos … enter OMG! Pretzels.

A little more than a decade into business, the Plymouth Meeting, PA-based pretzel company is finding its fit in the snack aisle with authentically aged sourdough nuggets tumbled in its proprietary seasoning blends.

Familial ties

The brand’s reach today is vast, with its footprint stretching coast to coast in more than 1,000 locations, including supermarkets, specialty grocers, c-stores, gift shops, airport stores and university campuses.

Along with being in hundreds of doors — and counting — across the country, the premium pretzels have made their mark on the snack segment. The brand earned a semi-finalist placement in the SNAC Tank Pitch Competition at SNAC International’s SNX 2024, and its Lemon Pepper flavor received a finalist nod for Most Innovative New Product at the 2024 Sweets & Snacks Expo.

It took time for the family-owned, woman-run business to reach this point. Its origins trace beyond its 2014 founding to co-founder and CEO Stephanie Kriebel’s childhood home kitchen.

“My mom was very strict about the types of snacks my siblings and I could eat,” Kriebel said. “So, she started making what is now our flagship garlic-seasoned sourdough pretzel nuggets for us to eat as after-school snacks, filling the gap she saw in the snack options in the market.”

The Kriebels served the pretzels as sides and brought them to parties as gifts. When people began asking where they could purchase the snacks, a path was unlocked for a business venture.

“My parents were 70 when we started the business, and we figured it would be this local or regional brand that would help support them in retirement,” Kriebel said, noting that once the seed was planted, it took the family about a year to scale the side hustle into a full-blown operation.

Starting out, Lynn Kriebel, Stephanie’s mother and co-founder of OMG! Pretzels, made the well-seasoned snack two pans at a time in their home oven. This production model lasted a few years until growing demand necessitated a commercial kitchen. Eventually, the Kriebels decided co-packing was the way to scale.

Building the brand was always a family affair. Initially, the company was operating in separate time zones, with the mother-daughter duo living in Pennsylvania and California, respectively. Stephanie leveraged her background in packaging and marketing to design the branding, and Lynn hit the pavement to drum up customers.

Flavor-forward fare

That door-to-door approach paid off in the long term; about 90% of the brand’s early customers still carry the seasoned pretzels in their stores today.

OMG! Pretzels launched with five varieties: Garlic, Sweet & Salty, Cheddar Jalapeño, Chesapeake, and Sweet & Spicy. While Lynn honed the flagship flavor early on, the Kriebels spent years formulating the other blends.

“We leaned heavily into our family roots for ideas around what flavors we wanted to bring to market,” Stephanie said.

For example, Sweet & Salty was created in honor of Stephanie’s paternal grandfather, while the Cheddar Jalapeño variety was crafted with her personal love for the spicy pepper in mind.

The production timeline varies from flavor to flavor. It takes four to six months to a year to finalize and bring a flavor to market. But it’s not enough to add SKUs to the line; each variety must hit all the right notes. As a result, perfecting the balance of each flavor is the toughest part of the R&D process for the team.

“It’s important to get that two-note tasting experience,” Stephanie said. “One flavor hits the tongue first, the second one comes after, and it lasts throughout the whole eating experience.”

This has been adapted from the August | Q3 2025 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full digital edition here.

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