Today, Jennifer Arrigo works as the public relations manager for Herr's in rural Nottingham, Pennsylvania. But when she first came on board with the potato chip and snack manufacturer some 30 years ago, much of her job revolved around giving free public tours of the factory to groups of schoolchildren and tourists.
That worked out rather well, because Arrigo — like so many of us who still harbor happy memories of field trips to chocolate factories or potato chip plants — has always had a fascination with factory tours.
One of her favorite tour stories involves a trip with her then 16-year-old son to the Crayola Experience in downtown Easton, back when at least some of the company's crayons were still produced there.
A typical teenage boy, Arrigo's son was less than thrilled with the idea of spending an afternoon with his mom, learning about crayons. She practically had to beg him to tag along. But by the time their visit came to end, the teenager had a smile plastered across his face. As they walked into the parking lot, he looked at her and said, “I want to go home and color!”
Such is the power of the American factory tour, one of the few modern recreation opportunities offering the dual benefits of being both affordable and deeply patriotic.
After all, factory tours give you “the opportunity to go out and 'kick the tires' of the American economy,” as Karen Axelrod and her husband Bruce Brumberg write in the preface to Watch It Made in the U.S.A., their definitive guidebook to the country's best factory tours and company museums.
“People have lifelong memories of their experiences [at factory tours],” says Axelrod in a phone call with Keystone Edge. “I always say people become like five-year-olds when they go on a factory tour, because your eyes just light up.”
Here in Pennsylvania, factory tours — the vast majority of them free — are plentiful. That's doubly true in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth, where, contrary to popular belief, manufacturing still plays a vital role in the economy.
Two hours west of Philadelphia and just south of the state capital, for instance, sits York County, self-proclaimed “Factory Tour Capital of the World.” For the past 15 years, the county's tourism bureau has been hosting a four-day-long factory tour festival — the Made In America Tours Event — during which companies that don't regularly welcome visitors pull back the curtain on their manufacturing operations. (This year's Made In America runs June 18 through 21.)
For the true factory tour aficionado, however, York County is just the beginning. From Pittsburgh in the west to Philadelphia in the east, Pennsylvanians can observe beer being brewed, snacks being packaged, guitars being constructed and motorcycles being manufactured.
Harley-Davidson
If you only have time for a handful of factory tours in York County, Harley-Davidson should be high on the list, even if you're not terribly interested in motorcycles or cycling culture. The free trek through Harley's 40-year-old Vehicle Operations facility is generally considered the very best up-close-and-personal opportunity on the entire Pennsylvania factory tour circuit.
According to Arrigo, part of the fascination has to do with the fact that Harley actually allows visitors onto the factory floor — a practice that was once common in the factory tour industry, but has since been curtailed due to safety and security concerns. (Kellogg's famously discontinued tours of its Battle Creek, Mich., plant due to increased OSHA regulations and the prevalence of corporate cereal spies who'd been attempting to steal the company's trade secrets.)
A wander down the assembly line and various fabrication areas is the highlight of the tour, where visitors learn about the assembly process that results in the company's famous Softail and Touring bikes. And yes, you'll even have an opportunity to hop aboard an in-production hog.
Due to the free tour's popularity, tickets are handed out on a first-come, first-served basis on weekdays beginning at 9 a.m. Hardcore enthusiasts, however, can choose to drop $35 on the Steel Toe Tour, which offers a much more comprehensive peek at production process.
Insider's tip: Just a few miles from Harley-Davidson sits the York Barbell Museum & U.S.A. Weightlifting Hall of Fame — it's definitely worth a visit.
Herr's Snack Factory Tour
Though it's not technically part of York County's so-called Sweet and Salty Trail, a visit to the Herr's factory in Nottingham is a wise choice for those craving an up-close-and-personal look at process of potato chip and pretzel production.
The tour kicks off with a 10-minute mini-documentary covering the company's history, screened in the surprisingly large Chipper's Theater. An eager tour guide then leads groups through the stations of the factory.
While most of the action is viewed from behind plate glass windows, the tour has a touch of the real factory floor experience. During a stroll through the 120,000-square-foot warehouse, where stacks of cardboard boxes stretch into infinity, the hairnet-clad workers packing bags of product are so close you could reach out and touch them.
Along the way, you'll be pelted with a series of manufacturing facts: It takes Herr's about three seconds to knock out a bag of chips; the company is capable of making 4,000 pounds of pretzels an hour; the factory goes through a half-million pounds of potatoes every day.
The tour ends, predictably enough, with the handing out of freebies and a stop at the Herr's gift shop. A snack bar-style café awaits those who've developed an incurable case of the munchies while viewing the production line.
Insider's tip: About 45 minutes northeast of Nottingham, in West Chester, you'll find the broadcasting facility of QVC, where products you never knew you needed slice and dice on-air 24 hours a day. The guided walking tour of the studio, which includes an opportunity to watch the QVC hucksters live and in action, is a true gas. Tours are $7.50 for adults; $5 for kids 6 through 12. Special all-access tours are available for $75 to $630. Seriously.
Utz Quality Foods
The experience at the Utz manufacturing plant couldn't be more different than the one offered at Herr's. The major change? This tour is a self-guided, which means you could literally spend all day gazing out upon the factory floor, an oddly mesmerizing place where mountains of potatoes are peeled, sliced, fried, salted and inspected before being packaged and warehoused.
The Utz Chip Trip, as it's known, runs along one of the lengthiest hallway you'll ever see. A never-ending row of plate-glass windows looks down on the factory and its beehive of workers. To get the inside scoop on what's actually happening, visitors press a red plastic button at each station, at which point a disembodied voice spits out a series of facts about the production process.
Not unlike the Herr's Snack Factory, the Utz experience also includes a small museum-like area that tells the story of the company's humble beginnings. There's also a standing-room-only theater where short films about the Utz company founders and the history of the potato chip are screened.
Insider's tip: Serious snack-food fiends who can't get enough of the Southeastern Pennsylvania salt circuit might consider booking a spot on the Snyder's of Hanover tour; the factory is about 10 minutes from the Utz factory by car.
The Snyder's experience is a mirror image of the Herr's Snack Factory Tour; if you have to choose one, go with Herr's. The standout here is the onsite Snyder's Outlet Store, a budget-friendly spot that stocks an eye-popping selection of super-cheap snacks. Even locals regularly shop at the Outlet Store, so you know it's good.
The Turkey Hill Experience
If you've ever paid a visit to the Crayola Experience — or to Hershey's Chocolate World, for that matter — you know what you're in for when you reach the entrance of the amusement park-style, kiddie-friendly Turkey Hill Experience in the small town of Columbia. This is certainly no factory tour, though millions were spent in an effort to make it resemble one. Sort of.
In full-on factory tour style, the Experience begins with a well-stocked gift shop and a number of interactive exhibits that tell the Turkey Hill story. Kids can climb inside an early-20th-century milk delivery truck, for instance. They can also “milk” a life-size fiberglass cow that squirts water from its plastic udders, if they are so inclined.
And while the heart of the Turkey Hill visit is a series of interactive games and computerized activities that attempt to duplicate the experience of working in an actual ice cream factory — product development, quality assurance and so on — a visit to the recently-constructed Turkey Hill Taste Lab will be the highlight of your trip. There, a lab coat-clad instructor walks visitors through the process of creating their own ice cream, which, yes, you do get to eat.
The entire Experience will set you back $14.50, or $9.95 if you skip the Taste Lab.
Insider's tip: If you'd rather not spend $14.50 a person for the whole shebang, fear not, as there's no need to leave the Turkey Hill Experience without making yourself sick on ice cream. A freebie ice cream counter featuring roughly a dozen different flavors sits just inside the Experience entrance and refills are free.
Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery
Though you might be experiencing sodium overload, skipping York County's Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, which sits smack-dab on the main drag of historic downtown Lititz, would be a mistake.
Located in a small 230-year-old restored structure that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Sturgis tour — which costs $3.50 for adults and $2.50 for children — leads visitors through the old-school method of pretzel making.
The Sturgis claim to fame is being the very first pretzel bakery in the country. The business was launched in 1861, and during the tour, visitors can check out the old brick ovens and antique pretzel-making gizmos that were used back in the day, when Sturgis and his team twisted each treat by hand.
The tour's highlight involves hand-twisting one of those pretzels yourself, after which you'll be awarded with an “Official Pretzel Twister” certificate.
Insider's tip: Also located in downtown Lititz, less than a half-mile from the Sturgis Bakery, is Wilbur Chocolate, a 150-year-old candy and confectionary manufacturer that once operated in Philadelphia's Old City district.
There's no factory tour there, but you'll find the rather toothsome (and free) Candy Americana Museum, where it's possible to watch chocolate pros go about their business in the onsite kitchen. And don't miss the olde-tyme candy store, which sits just beneath Wilbur's manufacturing facility.
Martin Guitar
Genuine, high-quality, Made-in-America products certainly aren't as easy to come by as they once were, and that's one reason the Martin Guitar guided factory tour is such a fascinating experience.
Visitors are shuffled right past the company's axe makers as they saw, sand and cut with hand tools. And while it's true that various aspects of the Martin production process is automated, a quick trip down the factory floor makes it obvious that the employees who transform bits of wood into some of the world's most respected guitars are seriously skilled craftspeople.
Also located onsite is the Martin Guitar Museum — something of a roots-rock version of the Hard Rock Café, but without the food — and the ever-popular Pickin' Parlor, a cozy room where visitors can actually bang away at limited-edition Martin models.
Insider's tip: The onsite gift store, known as the 1883 Shop, carries a good selection of Martin branded merchandise. But should you find your inner craftsman itching to express itself after seeing the Martin guitar artists at work, you'll want to visit the nearby Guitar Maker's Connection, located in the original Martin factory in downtown Nazareth.
A self-described “woodworker's dream,” the shop sells guitar-making kits along with various guitar tools, accessories and parts, and a selection of books on guitar building and repair. All the necessary supplies, in the other words, for the construction of your very own DIY git-box. What could be more American than that?
DAN ELDRIDGE is news editor at Flying Kite Media and the author of Moon Pittsburgh (Avalon Travel). His work has appeared in The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Daily Telegraph. Follow him on Twitter at @YoungPioneers.