Auntie Anne’s: A Farmer’s Market Stall Turned Franchise

 

Source: Nation’s Restaurant News

Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

When you think of buttery soft, freshly baked pretzels, Auntie Anne’s comes to mind. Aunty Anne’s, Inc. is an American pretzel franchise founded in 1988 by Anne Beiler and her husband Jonas.  Pretzels, dips, and beverages are all available at Auntie Anne's including Pretzels & More Homemade Baking Mix. Currently, the company president’s post belongs to Heather Neary.

The franchise has over 1,500 locations around the country, including malls and Walmart stores, as well as non-traditional retail places such as universities, resting areas, airports, train stations, travel plazas, amusement parks, and military posts. The reason why these places are “non-traditional” is that people don’t go to these places for enjoyment. These places rather exist out of necessity.

To begin with, a rest stop’s aim is to not stay too long and train stations aren’t places to just hang out. But the customers of Auntie Anne’s would even go to these places specifically to have their pretzels. That’s how much power it holds. Their slogan isn’t “Pretzel Perfect” for nothing after all.

The Story of the Real Auntie Anne

Source: Faith Driven Entrepreneur

Anne F. Beiler is a businesswoman and is most famously known as the founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, the world’s largest pretzel franchise. Every business and entrepreneur has a success story full of sacrifices and hard work but Anne, on the other hand, has a particularly difficult one. She struggled for years with failure, despair, and sadness, which kept her trapped in a dark place. However, it was through her suffering that she discovered a new purpose.

Anne Beiler grew up in an Amish-Mennonite community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, surrounded by faith and family. Important life lessons were firmly woven into the fabric of her life throughout these years. She went to a typical Amish school until the eighth grade, where she met and married her high school sweetheart, Jonas Beiler.

Life was good for these newlyweds who soon turned into new parents until the tragedy of their daughter’s death struck them. Their 19-month old daughter, Angela Joy, died when she was hit accidentally by a tractor on their farm. Anne and her husband, unable to connect emotionally and talk to each other, started drifting apart and became just two people who simply lived together.

Anne, falling deeper into depression, sought counseling with a pastor outside the Amish-Mennonite community, who took advantage of her vulnerability and trapped her in a sexually abusive relationship for 6 years after which his deeds were discovered and his license was revoked. All the feelings of shame and guilt pushed her to the point of having suicidal thoughts.

After confessing to her husband, both began a journey towards healing together and were able to fix their broken marriage. Jonas studied to become a marriage and family counselor and wanted to start offering free counseling. To support him in this, Anne bought a pretzel-selling store at the farmer’s market in Downingtown, Pennsylvania in 1988. Auntie Anne’s was born as a result of their soft pretzels’ success.

Expansion From a Stand to a Franchise

Source: RBM

The franchising of Auntie Anne’s began in 1989 with the opening of a store at the Saturday’s Market in Middletown, Pennsylvania and the number of units reached 100 in 1992. The first train station location opened in New York City’s Penn Station in 1995, along with the first international store in Jakarta, Indonesia. The number of stores reached 700 by 2001 and 100 international stores by 2003.

Currently, it has over 600 stores in international locations, ranging from European countries such as Greece, UK, Russia to many Asian countries like Malaysia, South Korea, India, Japan, Cambodia, and many others. There are stores in South Africa and Egypt and also in many South American countries.

Auntie Anne’s Diverse Menu

Source: TheFoodXP

The recipe for the pretzel was created by accident when Anne and Jonas ordered some wrong ingredients and tried to make it work. In the beginning, the pretzels that were made with that recipe were disappointing, but Jonas encouraged Anne to keep at it and finally, the recipe that we have today, with the impossibly soft bread, was created.

The pretzel dough mix hasn’t changed in 28 years, but there are now several varieties. Employees roll out and shape the dough by hand, which is harder than it sounds. Neary explains, “There are so many various things you can do with the dough, you can make it sweet, you can make it savory.”

Auntie Anne’s has a huge variety of pretzels with an even bigger variety of dips on its menu. Different kinds of soft classic pretzels, pretzel nuggets, and pretzel dogs are the basic products and when you pair these with different dips, it results in seemingly endless combinations. But not all locations have all the pretzels on offer.

The cups of pretzel nuggets (though it's debatable if they can really be called pretzels anymore) were created with portability in mind. Restaurants in many foreign countries have even made considerable changes to accommodate local preferences, such as modifying dishes to comply with halal requirements in Malaysia. It has kept on improving its menu and kept bringing in new stuff according to the preferences of the customers. 

Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary