From Kitchen Concept to National Success: The Journey of a Savory Startup With Stephanie Kriebel

Stephanie Kriebel is the Co-founder and CEO of OMG! Pretzels, a family-owned company making bite-sized sourdough pretzel snacks. The brand concept originated as an after-school snack her mother prepared for her and her siblings while growing up in Pennsylvania.

Before founding her company, Stephanie was an award-winning educator and program developer. As a certified health education specialist, she specialized in immigrant integration to enhance health, workforce development, and racial equity.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Stephanie Kriebel gives an overview of OMG! Pretzels and its origin
How does OMG! Pretzels develop its products and flavor profiles?
Stephanie’s tips for sourcing and onboarding a reliable co-packer
Methods for scaling a small startup to a premier CPG brand
What does it mean to be SQF-certified?
Self-care activities Stephanie benefits from

In this episode…

Scaling a baking business from a concept to an established CPG brand involves expanding operations to boost production and reach a larger customer base. What processes should you implement to grow your business?

As a baker, one method to consider is partnering with a co-packer. Short for a contract packer or manufacturer, a co-packer is a business specializing in manufacturing and packaging products on behalf of other companies. For food and CPG brands, a co-packer provides upgraded facilities, equipment, and expertise to handle the manufacturing and packaging process. While the process relieves bakery owners of exhaustive responsibilities, baking entrepreneur Stephanie Kriebel explains it can be a daunting experience. Having onboarded a few co-packers, Stephanie advocates for building relationships and maintaining transparent communication.

Join Odette D’Aniello in today’s episode of the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast as she interviews Stephanie Kriebel, the Co-founder and CEO of OMG! Pretzels, about scaling a business into a national CPG brand. Stephanie gives an overview of her company, shares tips for finding a reliable co-packer, and encourages entrepreneurs to indulge in self-care.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

Today’s episode is brought to you by Celebrity Cake Studio, a family-owned and operated cake boutique.

Celebrity Cake Studio has been baking joy into all of their artistically designed cakes and desserts for 21 years.

They are proud to work with a vibrant team of cake designers and bakers that help you celebrate the sweet moments in your lives.

They have received numerous awards, winning Best of Western Washington for many years in a row and various small business accolades.

To learn more about how you can celebrate yourselves or the ones you love, visit www.celebritycakestudio.com or email them at info@celebritycakestudio.com.

Episode Transcript:

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast where we feature top a bakery and specialty food entrepreneurs from around the world and share stories and tips on how to create a successful life in the baking world.

Odette D’Aniello 0:23

Hi, I’m Odette D’Aniello, the host of the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast, where I interview women in the bakery industry to hear how they live their creative lives, and share their adventures in running and managing a bakery business. I want to encourage you to go back and check out our past episodes with Katie Poppe, founder of Blue Star donuts in Portland, Oregon; Marlene Goetzler from Freeport Bakery in Sacramento; Patti Stobaugh of PattiCakes in Conway, Arkansas, Megan Wagstaff of Lady Yum in Seattle and Bronwen Weber from Bronwen Cakes in Dallas. Today, I am so very excited to talk to Stephanie Kriebel. She’s the CEO, and Co-founder of OMG! Pretzels. I love that name, oh my god. The delicious sourdough pretzel snacks that started in Philadelphia, and is now distributed across the country. Stephanie started the company with her mom, Lynn, who used to bake the pretzel treats for her when she was a little girl as an afternoon snack. I’m excited to talk to her about how she scaled her business, from an idea baked up in the kitchen to managing national distribution as a CPG brand. If you’re new to this space, CPG means consumer packaged goods that are sold in the middle of the aisle in the grocery store. Oh OMG! Pretzel is a certified-women-owned business through the WBENC Women’s Business, Enterprise National Council, and the Small Business Administration. Today’s episode is brought to you by my company Celebrity Gourmet Ventures, or Celebrity Cake Studio and Dragonfly Cakes. We’re a family-owned and operated specialty bakery in Tacoma, Washington and soon opening in Tucson, Arizona. We at Celebrity Gourmet have been baking joy into all of our artistically designed cakes and desserts for over 25 years. We are proud to work with a vibrant team of cake designers and bakers, who will help us celebrate the sweet moments in your lives. To hear more about how you can celebrate yourself to the ones you love. Visit celebrity cakestudio.com or dragonflycakes.com or email us at info@celebritycakestudio.com. Before introducing today’s guest, I want to give a big shout out and thank you to Bob Burke, who hosted the Natural Product Sales Seminar in Boston a few weeks back. And that’s where I met Stephanie. We’re actually sitting on the same table. If you would like more information on how to manage and scale your CPG food business, please contact Bob@naturalconsulting.com Now, Stephanie, Hi, how are you? Thank you for being on the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast. I love your background, surrounded by delicious pretzel bites, which I had, it was so good. So delicious. I wanted you to tell our listeners like how you got started and what’s behind the brand. What’s your story?

Stephanie Kriebel 3:44

I have thanks so much for having me on your podcast. This is really exciting and it was great to meet you at the seminar.

Odette D’Aniello 3:52

Great, so I had the pretzels. They’re delicious. They’re there have different flavors. I love the garlic parmesan was at a garlic parmesan.

Stephanie Kriebel 4:04

The we have a garlic flavor. Yes. It’s not a garlic garlic parmesan. But yes, it’s a garlic flavor. Awesome.

Odette D’Aniello 4:11

So tell me about how you started like your mom made it for you. And then what how did that go from your mom making it for you after school to now managing distribution all over the country?

Stephanie Kriebel 4:26

Oh, well. It’s been quite a ride. So when my siblings and I were growing up, my mom wanted us to have a better for you after school snack. And so she started making our garlic flavored pretzels for us to eat for after school snacks and she started serving them at home at her own parties and taking them as hostess gifts for her friends. And people just started asking where they could buy them. And so fast forward and OMG pretzels was the I’m created to pads at a time, right? My mom’s kitchen at our headquarters in Plymouth Meeting Pennsylvania,

Odette D’Aniello 5:07

Pennsylvania. I love that. So I’ve been calling it oh my god. So it’s O M G, C o n g.

Stephanie Kriebel 5:14

That’s okay. Because once you pop it in your mouth OMG was popping out. And that’s how we came up with our brand name. Because we listened to what people’s reactions were. And you can when people pop it in their mouth, they say, Oh, my God, these are so great. You know, so delicious. That’s how we came up with her name.

Odette D’Aniello 5:34

Yeah, it’s super flavorful, really yummy. And I said Parmesan, because the flavor, you can see it. So it looks like there’s like, the seasoning of it is so robust within each bite. So it tasted like there was more whatever it was in there. So like, that sounds like Oh, was it garlic parmesan with rosemary. And

Stephanie Kriebel 6:00

yeah, so that’s what that’s the niche that we we have is we are generous with our seasoning on every pretzel nugget. So we use a natural ah, sourdough nugget, we’re currently the only one in the market. And we apply our seasoning generously so that when our customers are eating our products, we don’t want them to be left with just a dried pretzel. By the last bite, we want you to have that love at first bite flavor throughout the entire experience. And so we also pride ourselves on our two note, flavor profiles. So one flavor typically will hit your tongue first, and then the second flavor profile will come up. We’ll follow that. That’s kind of our niche.

Odette D’Aniello 6:49

So what how did you guys determine that it was a two note or one note or three note? Was there like a professional who created the the flavor profile for you and the panel?

Stephanie Kriebel 7:01

No, we actually have created all the flavor profiles ourself. And so we originally when we were first starting out and as we grew the first probably five years, we created all of our seasoning blends right in my mom’s kitchen. So we went from our flagship garlic flavor that mom made for us when we were kids, to our family inspired a lot of our I should say that most of our seasoning blends are family and culinary inspired. So our the second flavor that we brought to market was our sweet and salty flavor. And that was created in honor of my grandfather who would come over every day before school to play cards and eat cinnamon sugar toast. And that’s actually how my siblings and I learned to do math. And so that was our second flavor. The third flavor we brought to market is currently called Chesapeake. And that’s kind of a mid Atlantic region. Seafood seasoning blend that is our proprietary flavor and is more on the savory side. We also have cheddar jalapeno, which is my personal favorite, because everything’s better with jalapeno. And then our sweet and spicy flavor rounded out our original five flavors over the first five years. And so the sweet and spicy is similar to the sweet and salty, which is cinnamon sugar, but this one is sugar and with a Cayenne heat at the end. And then fast forward to sorry, go

Odette D’Aniello 8:31

ahead. No, go ahead. That sounds yep, I

Stephanie Kriebel 8:34

was going to say so that was around the first five years. And you know, we we the first two years we were working in mom’s kitchen and then we grew and started baking in a commercial kitchen. And that lasted for three years until in 2020 right about the same time the pandemic hit. We were starting to scale. Nationally, we partnered with our first co-packer and added three new flavors so that at that time we added our lemon pepper flavor, our sweet chili flavor, and also our salty butterscotch flavor. So we really try and focus on flavor profiles that you don’t traditionally see on pretzels. And you know so now fast forward to 2023 We’ve gone through a brand elevation we’ve gone through, we’ve reformulated our product line so that their cleaner label the formulated out artificial ingredients. We have moved to the natural age sourdough as I mentioned, sourdough nugget and we have also partnered with a new co-packer who really is now our brand armor and gives us our limited capacity to really just scale the business now.

Odette D’Aniello 9:55

I think that’s really amazing because a lot of women are or anyone just I’m just gonna say when we because we’re focusing on women now we have these great ideas of mom makes his delicious pretzel or cake or whatever I’m like, we should sell it. Because, you know, you give it away and people are like, we should sell it. And then you go to the farmers markets. And the next thing you know you’re in a commercial kitchen. Next thing you know, you’re in bigger commercial kitchen. And then you get a big order. And then you have to go look for a co-packer. How was your? How was your journey into finding a co-packer?

Stephanie Kriebel 10:33

That’s a great question. And I love to share this because it’s hard to find a co-packer. So what I would say is, it’s all about the relationships, that and the conversations you have with people. What happened was, we were in the process of doing our first packaging change. So our original packaging was this clear bag with a black and white label stuck to it. And we made them in mom’s kitchen. And it was a very manual process. So then we went to our first printed bag. And it was at that time, when we were looking for a digit, we were looking at doing it digitally. And so I had a conversation with a digital printer. And it just so happened that he knew a co-packer put me in touch with them and it ended up being a good fit for us. Prior to that, though, I had been on the hunt for a co-packer for at least six months, had reached out to some of the other pretzel companies that do season products in in the industry to see if they did any CO packing reached out to other stack companies that do season products. Because you really have to have there’s there’s multiple ways to apply seasoning. And so you have to find the right partner that does it the same way you do. And traditionally ours have always been hand stirred. And so obviously when you scale that’s not sustainable. And we needed to find a a partner that could make the product similar to the way we were doing it only on a larger scale. And so there’s also a couple of like online platforms, one that I remember and I gotta say it but I’m not sure if they’re still in existence or not. But like partner slate, I was gonna say always one. Yeah, okay, so, but it’s been a few years since I was on that platform. I use that for a little while. But really, it just came down to a conversation I had ended up having with somebody who had nothing to do with CO packing. So and that’s the same way it happened when we so that was our first co-packer now the past two years, as we’ve gone through this brand elevation reformulation process. We’ve added a new flavor or a new buffalo flavor, you know, and then we’ve on boarded with a new co-packer that took a long time that onboarding process took almost 14 months. And so while the first co-packer was we on boarded like that, and we’re into production, the second one, it took a very long time. And but the way we found them was the same. So we had been working with a broker that happened to know a guy who worked at a co-packer that he used to work with way back when at another company and ended up reaching out to him. We got connected, it ended up working out and now we have this solid co packing partnership that is just going to help us to scale exponentially. And it’s all because of conversations. That’s it.

Odette D’Aniello 13:56

That’s so amazing that it isn’t that the truth is like your network is worth.

Stephanie Kriebel 14:03

Yes, Your network is your net worth absolutely. And, you know, I know that especially founders are an entrepreneurs are so busy and pulled in so many directions and you have to really manage your time and be cautious about how much time you give to introductory conversations with people. Right? But for example, like being at the seminar, putting yourself in the right place with the right people is really important when you can do it. And you know when it makes sense. And I don’t feel like most conversations are not are are important or can end up being important down the road you just don’t know. Right?

Odette D’Aniello 14:49

You Jen?

Stephanie Kriebel 14:51

This is proof of that. This is proof of that now we never ended up printing our bags digitally. We never ended up working with that print her goddess in touch with our first co-packer, however, we did work with the co-packer for several years. Oh,

Odette D’Aniello 15:07

it’s really good to be very intentional with what you want in your business and where you want it to go. Because as soon as you set that intention, then you can say yes or no, this is the right path. This isn’t the right path. And you can say, Yes, this conversation is worth it, this conversation isn’t. So there’s a, there’s a certain level of intentionality that is needed in order to get that serendipity to happen in your life, like what happened to you, but you set the intention, this is the kind of co-packer I need, I’m sure that if you weren’t very clear, you would have been chasing a lot more other people, you know, with maybe a co-packer that didn’t have the right machinery, or the dusting thing for you know, the seasonings, or they didn’t have the right ovens, right to get to whatever temperature, you know, or capacity. So, you know, I think there was kudos to you perhaps for set setting that intention and recognizing where you wanted to go.

Stephanie Kriebel 16:01

Yeah, and I would just say in addition to that is, while I would like to say yes, 100%, it was intentional. It this whole industry is a learning process. So just when you think you have something figured out, something else comes along, that you have to learn. And I don’t know that that’s any different than any other profession. But it’s really challenging because of all the moving parts in the CPG industry. And you know, from just figuring out what customers are going to be receptive to, as far as your product goes, testing the market, the packaging, the quality of the product, you know, the quality of your co-packer are the opportunities in the marketplace, getting in grocery retail, or, you know, now you mentioned that we saw when we back in 2020, was when we took the leap and went nationwide. And I would like to give credit to bear marketplace. That is an online platform that connects small brands to small independent retailers. And that’s how we got to be nationwide. And that still is a lot the majority of our business. So we do a lot of drop shipping across the country. We’re trying to expand now that we have rebuilt our foundation, if you will, with our new product line, and you know, cleaner label products and new packaging and all of that. And so, we are now going out and targeting larger retailers, we’ve got some export opportunities you you mentioned setting intention, well, a few years ago when I took over the CEO role, because I only came on board as the CEO 2019. Before that, I was kind of helping moms from afar, because while our business is implemented meaning Pennsylvania, I actually live and was a teacher in California, up until I left that profession in 2021. So to focus exclusively on OMG Pretzels. But all that to say that, you know, the intention that I had set was I want to I want to be a global company in three to five years. And so you know, we do have some export opportunities we’re working on hopefully some of those will pan out and only takes one to be a global company. So absolutely, absolutely. That’s super manifestation right? Manifestation

Odette D’Aniello 18:41

that’s intentionality at the station and living as if it already is that’s my that’s my thing. Just pretend already is you’re already shipping out. And exactly. Back to that. There’s a whole game, not a game, but consideration in terms of choosing to scale because it takes money to scale. So how did you go from, you know, doing it in a commercial kitchen to funding a run in for by a co-packer because for our listeners when you co pack something. It costs money. Can you tell us more about that process of like how you made the decision and the leap and how you’re able to fund your first production run?

Stephanie Kriebel 19:29

Yes, so you’re right, it takes money. We were fortunate to find a co-packer that had relatively low minimum order quantities. That’s really the first thing that helped us out and they also had a lot of flexibility in their production scheduling. So we were able to have that on our side if you will. As far as big carrying things out as we went. But prior to getting the co-packer though one thing we had done while we were still in the commercial kitchen, was we started sourcing our ingredients from larger suppliers. And in bigger bulk, we had some room at our commercial kitchen, where we were able to bring in pallets of ingredients. And so we had already started that process. So that made the transition to the co-packer easier, where we didn’t have to rely on the co-packer to source our ingredients. For us. That was a benefit, also very challenging. Because when you are the brand and you are managing your own ingredients that are stored at your co-packer, their hat, you know that can be quite challenging in knowing well what do I have, you know, maintaining that inventory and those numbers, and being able to reorder your supplies in a timely fashion in order to meet the production that you need to do. And so there’s all these levers that you have to pull in order to make it all work seamlessly. And do things always go seamlessly? Well, you know, they don’t like you know,

Odette D’Aniello 21:30

To manage, or did you just use it like Google Docs?

Stephanie Kriebel 21:35

No. So originally, yes, we were using Google Docs, spreadsheets. But then we started working with Fiddle, which is an online inventory management system. We still use them today, even though our new co-packer now sources everything for us. So from our ingredients to our film, we only our only responsibility is to purchase the finished goods. And so we’re very fortunate with that relationship. It’s it’s almost unheard of. So that’s that is.

Odette D’Aniello 22:09

That’s really amazing. I wanted to go back really quick of what it takes to onboard with a co-packer because you said the first one it didn’t take that long. The second one, it took a bit.

Stephanie Kriebel 22:22

Yeah, and I think a lot of that has to do with first of all the size of the co-packer and also their their quality assurance processes. So our first co-packer was not SQF -certified. And but our new co-packer is, so they have criteria that they have got to follow in order to make sure that when ingredients are brought in, they’re at a certain quality standard before they can then accept them into the system and use them to make our product. I wasn’t like that before. We were, as I said, the ones responsible for sourcing our ingredients. And basically we sourced them, and not that they were of lesser quality or anything. That’s not the that’s not the case. But we didn’t have to meet those SQF qualities because our co-packer was not SQF certified. So now we are and it’s a game changer for us. So when you start to get into larger retailers, it matters. They look for that stuff. And really it’s just it’s a way of people knowing the quality and the safety of the food chain.

Odette D’Aniello 23:47

Right when our listeners SQF is a third party audits, food safety, certification, safe quality food, so that means the food when they say safe, that means if there’s any recalls, they can pull everything in an hour or (I’m exaggerating) in a very short time so that it doesn’t, you know it doesn’t proliferate in the market as a tainted food. So basically, that’s SQF has a lot of requirements and to be an SQF certified facility has a lot of money. But it assures everyone that your food is manufactured safely. It’s not just SQF you can also get ABA certification, which is American Baking Association, which is what my facility has. And then there’s GFSI search of certification. So if you need any information on that, you can contact me or you can ask a lot of Mr. Google’s Mr. Google’s resources, but yeah, so that the reason why the onboarding was hard it was because of the certification, the third party certification, which meant you could go to Whole Foods, right and bigger companies because gross that’s what the bigger grocery stores require?

Stephanie Kriebel 25:15

Correct? Yes. And so we’re working on some of those submitted submitting to some of those larger retailers and trying to navigate that process it recently. So in addition to onboarding with the new co-packer, I really have been focusing on building out our team. And we have started focusing a lot more on e-commerce to with our new web development team who are doing a fabulous job on our website and our email marketing and our digital marketing. We have I brought on a director of sales in growth strategy. And we have a our creative director, creative and PR director, she is has been with me for a while she worked with me at my former business and so was a national transition, bring her over. And, you know, just the whole team is working to, you know, find opportunities for to grow the business to grow the brand, to get us some, you know, PR and you know, so you bring up Whole Foods, we’ve actually been featured in Whole Foods Magazine, while we’re not in Whole Foods, the retailer yet, hopefully one day we will be we are featured in Whole Foods Magazine. We were named in number seven in the top 31 Road Trip snacks from Delish and then we’ve also been like on in commercial featured in Commercial Baking Magazine. So and on our local Philly Live.

Odette D’Aniello 26:55

That’s awesome. I love that I mean, stories is, you know, I think it’s really important for people who are listening to, you know, pursue your dreams, if you have something that you’re passionate about, be it pretzels, or, you know, whatever else that you think the world needs and can enjoy, go for it, right? Just be brave and go for it. Because it’s you don’t know where it’s gonna take you. It’s all learning. It’s it’s unsteady, the path isn’t steady, and a lot of surprises. But it is an adventure. Right. And, and with that adventure, I think as especially as women, we tend to overwork but I know that you 70 have a really good regimen for self care. So can you tell us more about that? Like, how do you take care of yourself as you manage a growing CPG pretzel brand?

Stephanie Kriebel 27:55

That’s a great question. And to be honest, I’m better at it sometimes that I am at other times. So it’s helped a lot, building out the team, because now there are people responsible for doing things that I was my mom and I were doing, you know, ourselves help, you know, we’ve had a lot of support to I just want to point out from family and friends over the years as we’ve grown, you know, who have worked in our kitchen, who have packaged our product who have made deliveries, you know, and, you know, while growing to working with a co-packer, of course, that we don’t have those people we’re working with them, you know, they still are involved by going to local events for us, sampling out our products and so, but as far as the self care, you know, for me walking is a real de stressor. And even though I’m not so good at it in the winter in Pennsylvania, it’s cold and I’m not real. I don’t like the cold so much. When I am home in California in the winter, I am able to walk more in the summer, of course, it’s not a problem as the winter months. I mean, as the spring and summer and fall, allow it to be warmer and then you know, just really time management is key and shutting off at a certain time each day. Is that 100% No, there are times when I’m still sitting at my desk at midnight or 1am. And but they’re less and less frequent now. And so it’s really important to just get away from the screen. Be able to just relaxed and start fresh the next day. So and that’s eat eating right too. So I make sure I love to cook. That’s a de stressor for me. And so making dinner every night helps me to decompress as well. That’s on to you to be creative. Yeah, I

Odette D’Aniello 30:19

think that’s what’s that’s what we all need. We need to manage our energy so that we continue to be creative. And you could weather the storm of the up and downs right of the unknowingness. And the knowingness of things. So this is awesome. Thank you so much. And I wanted to just ask you one last question. If you have the ability to talk to your younger self, what would you tell her?

Stephanie Kriebel 30:44

I would say add a girl, keep going. yourself a pat on the back. You should say that because I do have a photo of my younger self, on my dresser in my bedroom that I see every morning. And it’s really important to stay connected to that little girl in all of us. That dreamer that go getter, you know, empower her empower.

Odette D’Aniello 31:12

empower others. Right? My friend. I love that I have a friend, her mom is 84. And she, I just went to visit her in Boston. Right. That’s where I stayed. And her prayer, which I absolutely love is, God, please help us so we can help others. You know, and part of that recognizing our own selves in different iterations. And, you know, giving her kudos for dreaming the dream and you’re living it now. Yes, yes.

Stephanie Kriebel 31:55

Absolutely.

Odette D’Aniello 31:56

Thank you so much for being on the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast. it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Stephanie.

Stephanie Kriebel 32:02

Thank you, Odette. It’s been fun.

Odette D’Aniello 32:04

Thank you.

Outro 32:09

Thanks for listening to the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.