The Herr's Snack Factory, located in Nottingham, PA offers factory tours*. The factory is located about 45 minutes away from West Chester and offers tours Monday through Friday. You can sign up online for your tour time slot or call to schedule a tour. The tours last about an hour and begin in the Visitors Center. The tour starts with a short video giving some history about the Herr's snack business. It then continues with a walking tour of the facility. The best tours happen Monday through Wednesday when the factory is in full-working mode. However, we visited recently on a Thursday and still saw lots of factory activity. On the Herr's website, it explains that on Thursday and Friday there is a chance of a video-only tour.
During the tour you walk between buildings and some of the factory buildings do get warm in the summer months. Keep that in mind as you plan your tour. It was fairly warm the day we went, but not unbearable. We were not in any very warm spots for all the long, but it is something to keep in mind!
I think one of the coolest things we saw as part of our tour was the bagging process. The kids enjoyed seeing potato chips coming down the factory line. We all enjoyed the fresh warm potato chips at the end of our tour!
After your tour you can grab lunch at the cafe or visit the gift shop which includes a large variety of souvenirs as well as some "Oops!" snack bags. These are bags that were not up to standard by Herr's but are sold at 50% in the gift shop. We picked up some goodies and made our souvenir pennies, too! (You can read about this new tradition we have here). It was a great road trip with a delicious ending!
*Updated 2017 - Tours are now $4 for adults and $3 for children 4-17 (Children 3 and under are free)
