Hershey to acquire North Dakota-founded Dot’s Pretzels as part of $1.2 billion deal | Brainerd Dispatch

“I created my pretzels to share with those people closest to me and have built the business with the idea of sharing them with everyone,” founder Dorothy “Dot” Henke said in a news release on the acquisition. “With Hershey behind this amazing brand, I am confident that anyone who would like to enjoy these deliciously bold pretzels will have the opportunity.”

Henke said she was first inspired to give a new twist to pretzels after she attended a wedding reception in Max, North Dakota. She noticed the Chex party mix also contained spindle pretzels, which added a buttery flavor and crunch.

Henke bought a packet of spindle pretzels and started experimenting with different spice mixes in her own kitchen in Velva, North Dakota. When she found the perfect blend, she started giving them away to friends and family members. One year, a relative asked her to make a batch of her special-recipe seasoned pretzels for customers in Arizona.

“She handed them out and her phone started ringing off the hook,” Henke said in a video on the company’s website.

The pretzel proudly marketed as “”a small-town recipe” with “big time flavor,” were a hit, Henke told attendees of the 1 Million Cups Fargo event in 2019.

Henke and her husband, Randy, started out attending Pride of Dakota shows and other trade shows. They eventually opened a production facility in their hometown of Velva. By 2015, they opened a plant in Goodyear, Ariz., and in 2017 opened a facility in Lenexa, Kan., because it was a centralized location for distribution.

Dot’s Pretzels is the fastest-growing U.S. pretzel brand among brands with more than $10 million in annual U.S. retail sales, according to Hershey. The company said Dot’s represented 55% of growth in the pretzel category over the past year.