From Clinton to a former jail in Fitchburg.

Wachusett Potato Chips is a Massachusetts brand founded by two brothers, Theofil and Steven Krysiak. The founding year is given in two forms. The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, in an article by Aaron Nicodemus published on 19 October 2011, said the brothers founded the Wachusett Potato Chip Co. in 1937, and English Wikipedia also gives 1937, describing the brothers as Polish-American and naming the second brother as Stephen “Sam” Krysiak. A news release from Utz Brands, dated 30 September 2021, says the company was founded in 1939.

Both the newspaper and the Utz release agree on where the business started: in Clinton, Massachusetts. The Utz release says the brand takes its name from nearby Mount Wachusett, and English Wikipedia describes the mountain as straddling the towns of Princeton and Westminster in Worcester County.

In 1947 the company moved north to Fitchburg. The Telegram & Gazette said it moved into a decommissioned jail, and the 2021 Utz release describes the site as a former prison turned potato chip factory and distribution centre. English Wikipedia says the company bought the jail building and grounds, converted the property into a manufacturing and distribution site, and made several additions and renovations over the years, with a large renovation in the 1980s that included air conditioning for the plant; it adds that the company also acquired distribution storage in Sterling, Massachusetts.

The business stayed in the Krysiak family until 2011. The Telegram & Gazette said Edward Krysiak, Theofil’s son, kept the company in the family, employing two of his brothers, two of his sisters and two nephews, and that in 2011 he was its president.

Utz in 2011, a new plant owner in 2024.

The Krysiak family sold the business in 2011. The Telegram & Gazette reported on 19 October 2011 that Utz Quality Foods Inc. of Hanover, Pennsylvania, had bought the Wachusett Potato Chip Co.’s Water Street facility, trucks, equipment and brand and had hired its employees. The paper quoted a release from Utz saying the company had “assumed ownership of the Wachusett brand and all associated trademarks” along with the distribution routes and the Fitchburg manufacturing facility, and that Utz intended to add equipment to make Utz-brand potato chips in Fitchburg as well. According to Edward Krysiak, Utz took over the plant at midnight on 30 September 2011 and production continued without a break.

The family stayed on through the handover. The Telegram & Gazette said Edward Krysiak had signed a one-year contract to remain in charge of the plant, and that his nephews Barry and Greg Krysiak had signed two-year agreements with Utz; Utz vice president George Neiderer was quoted saying the three would help maintain the Wachusett brand and lead plans to make Utz products at the site. Krysiak told the paper that Utz had approached the company: “It was either build or buy,” he said, adding that Utz was looking to expand in New England. The paper also said Wachusett had for a decade distributed Tri-Sum Potato Chips, a brand once made in Leominster.

Ten years on, the 2021 Utz release marked the brand’s tenth anniversary with the group. It said Utz had added a second shift in Fitchburg and invested in a new potato-stick line, and that members of the Krysiak family still worked in the business. It quoted Greg Krysiak, then plant manager in Fitchburg, saying the team took pride in continuing “the Wachusett business my grandfather and his family created”.

The building has since changed hands. Just Food reported on 18 April 2024, in an article by Fiona Holland, that Utz Brands was selling its manufacturing facilities in Fitchburg and in Berlin, Pennsylvania, to Our Home, the New Jersey-based maker of Popchips, with a transition services agreement and with Our Home to co-manufacture certain Utz products for a period. Utz has owned the Wachusett brand since 2011, and its online shop continues to list Wachusett as one of its snack brands.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group sit on three different shelves of the grocery aisle: olive oil, pancake and baking mix, and the salty snacks of pretzels and potato chips. Each category has its own packaging habits, and a brand’s identity is often carried less by the food itself than by the tin, bottle, box or bag that holds it, and by the name printed across the front.

An olive-oil tin or bottle tends to lean on a family name, a place and a sense of origin. A pancake-mix box is built around a front panel that has to be read at a glance, with a picture of the finished stack and instructions on the side or back. A pretzel or chip bag has to work as a flat, printed surface that is folded, sealed and stacked, so colour, a wordmark and a window or photograph of the contents do much of the work.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who started the business, who owns it now, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A place name, a family and a New England flavour list.

The brand’s identity rests on its name. The Krysiak brothers named their chips after a place rather than after the family: Mount Wachusett, the mountain the Utz release says gave the brand its name. The name passed to Utz in 2011, a transaction in which, the Telegram & Gazette reported, Utz assumed ownership of the Wachusett brand and its associated trademarks. Utz’s own online shop now presents Wachusett on a collection page of its own, describing its snacks as having authentic New England flavour.

The flavour list has been part of that identity. English Wikipedia says that over the years the company made a range of potato chip flavours including sour cream and onion, ketchup, salt and vinegar, barbecue and honey barbecue, as well as ripple chips and a no-salt-added chip, and that until the Utz sale it also sold cheese curls and popcorn under its own label. It adds that a large part of the plant’s output was private-label potato chips for supermarkets and for food-service suppliers. The 2021 Utz release names BBQ, Salt & Vinegar and Sour Cream & Onion among the brand’s flavours and says the chips are sold in New England.

The family story is also part of how the brand is presented. The Utz release in 2021 opened with the founding brothers, the move from Clinton and the converted prison in Fitchburg, and closed with a Krysiak grandson running the plant, while the 2011 newspaper account traced three generations of the family through the business. The release carried the hashtag #LOVEWACHUSETTS.

For a design guide, Wachusett shows how a regional chip can build its identity on a local landmark and keep that name through a change of owner. Compare it with Mikesell’s, an Ohio chip brand now made under licence by another company, and Kettle Chips, another potato chip brand. For this guide we use mountain blue and ridge navy on chip gold with a grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Wachusett’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.