Customer Spotlight
Success with a Twist
Milwaukee Pretzel owners Katie and Matt Wessel
In 2012, Matt and Katie Wessel were living in Germany. One night after a visit to a beer garden Katie pulled a Bavarian soft pretzel that she had bought earlier in the day out of her bag. The couple ate it, and as Matt says, “It was still delicious.” Then and there they decided to make and sell Bavarian style pretzels when they got back to Milwaukee. They wrote up the plan on the train the next morning for a business that would eventually become Milwaukee Pretzel Company.
Back home in Milwaukee, it was up to Katie, who had been making her family’s Thanksgiving dinner since she was 12, to use her cooking talents to learn to make pretzels. Her fluency in German in hand as she researched the product, and after extensive came taste testing from friends and family, she landed on the right recipe. “What makes a Bavarian pretzel is the depth of flavor,” says Matt. More than just flour and water, a proper Bavarian pretzel uses ingredients like rye, malt or butter – no oil or sugar, which you might find in commercial brands, he says.
“There is a satisfaction employing people, giving people them not only a paycheck and career, but purpose and jobs they like.”
In 2013, with the recipe decided and only three-weeks’ notice to make 2,000 pretzels, Matt and Katie got a booth at Milwaukee’s German Fest. It was there that they landed their first wholesale accounts. Matt says within a month or two, they had 12 accounts. Today, you’ll find Milwaukee Pretzels in restaurants and stores not only all over Wisconsin, but in 27 other states across the country. They ship nationwide with their online store at Milwaukeepretzel.com. They are also the Official Pretzel of not only the Milwaukee Brewers, but the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Guardians, Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans.
Since its inception, the company has operated out of several kitchens. Each era of growth has required upgrades of space and equipment. In 2021, Milwaukee Pretzel Company bought a building on Milwaukee’s northwest side. And in November 2024, with the help of BMO and MEDC, they added 28,000 square feet onto their existing 22,000 square foot building. MEDC also helped the company finance an automated twist line from Germany to shape the pretzels and industrial mixers from Italy to improve quality and manufacturing process. When the business started, Matt says, they needed to make 150 pretzels a day to stay in business. Today, with the help of their automated line, they can make 150 pretzels in under five minutes!
Automated twist line
Still, a hand-rolling team is needed to create the specialty shapes¬–shamrocks, hearts, wreaths and bunnies– that are available for the holidays. These folks and the rest of the 132 Milwaukee Pretzel employees are a particular point of pride for the Wessels. “There is a satisfaction employing people, giving people them not only a paycheck and career, but purpose and jobs they like,” Katie says.
In Germany, the Wessels noticed how much Bavarian pretzels were part of German culture and identity. They wanted the pretzel to be part of Milwaukee culture too. “We called it ‘Milwaukee’ pretzel because we were thinking of making pretzels for Milwaukee – we wanted it to be part of its identity,” Matt says.
Milwaukee Pretzel products
You can order Milwaukee Pretzel products on their website.