Utz Quality Foods Dips Into Comcast Business Ethernet and Business Trunks to Connect Multiple Locations Across the Eastern United States

HANOVER, Pa., April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to business and residential customers, today announced that Utz Quality Foods, Inc., the largest independent privately held snack brand in the United States, is using Comcast Business Ethernet and Business Trunks to connect multiple office locations and distribution centers throughout the Eastern United States. In addition to taking advantage of more bandwidth and saving on its Internet and voice connectivity costs, Utz can also utilize these new fiber-based services to quickly scale up from its existing 20 Mbps service to as much as 1 Gbps of bandwidth capacity to meet its business demands as the company continues to grow.

Founded in 1921, Utz Quality Foods, Inc. is a high-quality manufacturer of potato chips, pretzels, cheese curls, popcorn, party mix, and other snack foods. Headquartered in Hanover, Pa., the company produces approximately 1.5 million pounds of potato chips and 850,000 pounds of pretzels every week at its nine manufacturing plants across the U.S. These products are then delivered to supermarkets, convenience stores, and other retail locations from Utz's more than 50 distribution centers primarily in the Eastern United States.

With its recent acquisitions of three major regional brands and distribution networks – Zapp's Potato Chips, Wachusett Potato Chip, and The Bachman Co. – within the past 24 months, Utz realized it needed to reassess its existing wide area voice and data networking infrastructure to replace its old T1 lines. The company looked to Comcast Business to connect its new regionally-dispersed employee offices, supplier locations, and distribution centers in a way that would also provide the bandwidth Utz knew it needed for future growth.

"Comcast Business has been right there with us each step of the way, acting as a true business partner and giving us the same dedicated service that we provide to our customers. Knowing that we can also scale up our bandwidth to as high as 1 Gbps in a matter of days – not weeks – gives us the ability to react quickly so that we can continue putting our customers first, as we always have," said J. Ed Smith, chief information director for Utz Quality Foods, Inc. "In aggregate, we realized a significant savings, while enjoying more bandwidth than what our T1 lines had given us. In our opinion, there is both tangible and intangible value in working with Comcast, which is the recipe for a true business partner!"

Utz installed a 20 Mbps Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI) line that replaced three T1 connections at its corporate headquarters to provide up to four times the bandwidth for much less than what the company was previously paying. This allows Utz to host most of its corporate applications directly from headquarters, including programs as diverse as occupational health management and AUTOCAD software. Utz also added two Business Trunks as well, which is saving the company's call center in local and long distance fees.

Most recently, Comcast installed both a 6 Mbps and 10 Mbps Ethernet Private Line (EPL) at Utz's Sterling and Fitchburg, Mass., facilities. As strategic locations for the company, these two facilities ship product directly to Utz's various New England distribution centers, with the latter also being responsible for feeding video surveillance footage back to headquarters.

"An increasing number of companies are partnering with Comcast Business because our wide range of scalable, high-speed services are complemented by an equally wide network of fiber that can reach virtually any geographic area, making Ethernet an ideal solution for rapidly-growing businesses like Utz that need to adapt to ever-changing demands from both their employees and customers," said Glenn Lytle, vice president for Comcast Business Services in the Keystone Region. "This important benefit, combined with reliable connectivity and dedicated customer support, is what sets us apart from our competitors and helps our customers succeed."

About Comcast Business
Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a modern, converged network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Internet, TV and Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

Launched in 2011, the Comcast Business Ethernet suite offers high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Metro Ethernet services with the capacity to deliver cloud computing, software-as-a-service, business continuity/disaster recovery and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Comcast Metro Ethernet services are significantly faster than standard T1 lines and other legacy technologies, providing scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in more than 20 major US markets.

For more information, call 866-429-3085 or visit http://business.comcast.com/enterprise. 

Follow us on Twitter @ComcastBusiness and on other social media networks at http://business.comcast.com/social.

About Comcast Cable
Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses.  Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings.  Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company.  Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

SOURCE Comcast Cable