Our Story

Do you care about what you eat and what you put into your body? Then you are a food conscious consumer and our food is for you!

PARTNERS is a second-generation family owned bakery based in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1992, we’ve been making real food from scratch with integrity and responsibility. We carefully craft high quality crackers, cookies, and other baked goods using real honest ingredients. We use recipes from kitchens, not formulas from factories, and create our signature taste and crisp texture through close attention to detail, ingredient choices, and our proprietary slow-baking method.

Since our founding in 1992, PARTNERS®, A Tasteful Choice Company, has been dedicated to providing better food to more people.

It all started with one entrepreneurial woman – our founder, Marian Harris. While running a small business in downtown Seattle, she was unable to find a casual restaurant serving good yet affordable lunches. Seeing an opportunity, she opened one herself, which earned rave reviews and a loyal following.

Marian’s homemade soups and salads were a hit, but as she looked for quality crackers to accompany her meals, she came up empty-handed. Her solution? She developed a special recipe and started making her own. The crackers proved so popular, people took them home by the bagful!

After many successful years as a respected restaurateur, Marian sold her business. As she considered her next move, she was drawn back to gourmet crackers.

One rainy, blustery day in the fall of 1992, Marian sorted a batch of her crackers and set out to visit local stores with the samples. Her determination, charm, and delicious products got her seven orders, and PARTNERS®, A Tasteful Choice Company, was born. (Marian named it PARTNERS because the crackers were a perfect "partner" for any food, "from peanut butter to pâté.")

To help meet increasing demand and leverage her sudden success, Marian recruited her son, Greg, who had a degree in physics. He offered to help for a couple of weeks, which turned into years as the company grew in leaps and bounds. Today, Greg Maestretti is our vice president of operations.

In the early days, the two worked countless hours in Marian's kitchen, filling and refilling orders. They visited trade shows, added customers, moved into a commercial cooking space, and hired four employees. The fledgling company grew rapidly and by the summer of '93, they turned to another family member to help handle the unanticipated surge in orders.

Marian’s daughter Cara had just graduated from law school and passed the Washington state bar. She committed to helping Marian and Greg for three years. Drawn into the high-energy environment, she stayed with the company. Today, Cara Figgins is our president.

PARTNERS operates a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, 150,000-square-foot bakery near Seattle. We’ve developed multiple brands featuring a wide variety of non-GMO, gourmet artisan crackers, cookies, and other baked goods, including organic, low-fat, and allergy-friendly options. All are free of high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and hydrogenated oils.

PARTNERS’ award-winning products are slow baked with real, honest ingredients and are perfect for eating on the go, snacking, entertaining, or simply enjoying with a meal. They are available in all 50 states and around the world.