Milling & Baking News - May 23, 2017 - 37

Miller Baking pushing category
boundaries with Pretzilla
MILWAUKEE - From pretzel buns
to portable snacks, Miller Baking Co.
is moving its Pretzilla brand from one
trending category to another with
the launch of new Pretzilla Bites and
Pretzilla Bites with Cheese Dip.
"As we grow the Pretzilla brand,
obviously coming up with new platforms is really important, and with today's consumer, the daypart of snacking is becoming such a huge part of
eating today," said Brian Miller, owner
of Miller Baking Co. and the Pretzilla
brand. "Our new products are unique,
and that's the most important
thing about what we do. We're
not interested in creating metoo products, so when you talk
about the new s.k.u.s we're trying to develop, we want to develop things that aren't already
in the marketplace. Pretzel twists
have been covered pretty well,
and while there's some new flavor profiles coming out, we're
not looking to copy what anyone
else is doing. We want to create
things that have never been put
into the marketplace before."
The Pretzilla Bites are soft
pretzel nuggets packaged in
13- and 36-count tubs, and the
Pretzilla Bites with Cheese Dip are
on-the-go snack packs featuring six
Pretzilla Bites packaged with cheese
dip. The snack packs are shelf stable,
offering a 10-day shelf life.
"With our product, the challenge is
that we have a fresh yeast-based product," Mr. Miller said. "Hard pretzels
can stay good for six months to a year.
But when you're talking about a fresh
soft pretzel bun and turning it into a
soft nugget and then keeping it fresh
and clean label and all our other brand
attributes, it wasn't easy, but we knew
it wouldn't be. We knew giving this to
consumers in a really cool packaging
format was something we were excited about, and we just saw unlimited
potential."
The formulation for Pretzilla Bites
with Cheese Dip took 18 months to
develop, Mr. Miller said.
"The cup of cheese we're putting
in with the pretzel bites, we took six
months just developing that recipe
so it would be better than what you
would maybe get in a movie theater
or a ballpark ... not to say that those
are bad, but we just knew that we have
a premium product in terms of our
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pretzel bites, and we wanted to make
sure the cheese was premium as well,"
he said. "I'm here in Wisconsin, so I
can't have lousy cheese."
Pretzilla's new snack products will
help the company expand into the
convenience store channel, a frontier
thus far unreached by the brand, Mr.
Miller said. To aid in the effort, the
company is developing a warming
box for c-stores to sell warm Pretzilla
Bites in a countertop display.
Moving into c-stores is part of Miller Baking's strategic plan for Pretzilla

in the upcoming year, along with expanding distribution into more grocery chains.
Currently, Pretzilla soft pretzel
burger buns, mini buns and sausage
buns are sold in Whole Foods Market
stores nationwide. The brand is also
sold in such regional chains as Fairway, Bristol Farms, Pick 'n Save and
Earth Fare.
Staying in touch with consumer
trends is a key part of Miller Baking's
strategy. The company recently reformulated the entire Pretzilla portfolio
to be clean label and vegan.
"Every year more and more people
are getting into clean eating and vegan
eating," Mr. Miller said. "We didn't
know what the market would hold in
acceptance of that, but we knew that
we wanted to push the envelope to get
the best possible product. We didn't
want to impugn quality, but we knew
we wanted to be able to offer a better
product than what most people are
used to."
The reformulation process wasn't
an easy one, however, Mr. Miller said.
"It wasn't like we got it in a day,"
he said. "But it was something we

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were committed to. There were definitely multiple formula ideations
to get to where we are today."
In addition to reformulating its
recipe, Miller Baking also transitioned
Pretzilla manufacturing to a nut-,
dairy- and egg-free facility in 2014,
seven years after the brand launched.
Pretzilla originally operated out of the
same facility as its fresh route baking
company, which Mr. Miller's family purchased in 1970. The company,
which still operates its fresh route
business, bakes and delivers bread,
rolls, muffins, cookies, donuts and
other baked foods throughout the
metropolitan Milwaukee area.
"As we evolved, we knew we wanted to create not only a facility
but also a recipe that mirrored
what the 21st century consumer is eating," Mr. Miller said.
"Clean label, vegan, kosher and
nut-free. We needed to be in a
facility that didn't process any
of that stuff. When we switched
to our new facility that we
opened in May 2014, we were
adamant that we weren't going
to let any of those ingredients
even into the building. It's not
like we process some of these
allergens and just do a really
deep cleaning - we don't even
allow them into the facility for
any kind of processing."
The shift to the new recipe and facility has boosted Pretzilla's growth.
The brand has grown more than 30%
year-over-year for the past three years
since the company made the switch,
Mr. Miller said.
"The (allergen-free) community, especially the parents of kids with food
allergies, are very passionate that the
standards are kept very high, because
obviously no one wants to make another person sick, especially a child,"
Mr. Miller said. "So we went above
and beyond with not just creating a
bun we think is great tasting but having some really cool brand attributes
that can help people be loyal to us.
And we are loyal back to our customers by being transparent and letting
them know what we're up to with our
food safety."
Beyond its clean label and allergyfriendly claims, Mr. Miller said Pretzilla prides itself on just being a "greattasting bun" and different from other
products on the market.
"I wanted it to be lighter and airier, with a touch of sweetness, just
a unique product that really was a
great partner for protein," Mr. Miller
Milling & Baking News XMay 23, 2017 / 37

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Milling & Baking News - May 23, 2017

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