Today we’d like to introduce you to Aric Christensen Molly Krichten.
Hi Aric Christensen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In the summer of 2025, we had a hankering for fried peanuts like the ones we’d get at convenience stores in Florida. We knew they weren’t sold in stores in Pittsburgh, and we didn’t really want to order them from Amazon, so we decided to make them ourselves.
What started as an experiment led to lots of messing around in the kitchen, giving peanuts of all different flavors to our friends to get feedback, and trying to convince people to eat the shell.
Quality ingredients didn’t seem to be a priority in the very small fried peanut industry, so we decided to do things differently. We use peanut oil for frying, which is more expensive than vegetable or cottonseed oil, but tastes a lot better. We buy our peanuts from Wricley Nut Products Company in Philadelphia. The most fun ingredients are the seasonings. We love using local ingredients and supporting other small businesses. Luckily, there are two local businesses that sell top quality, unique products. We are proud to use Uncle Jammy’s Garlic Lovin’ Rub and Kizzle Foods sun-dried scotch bonnet seasoning for two of our best selling core flavors, Garlic and Spicy, respectively.
We got our kitchen licensed in September 2025 and began the business in earnest in October. By mid-December, we’d been featured in Pittsburgh Magazine and Forge Fried was dubbed “your new snack obsession” by the food editor there. We launched with four flavors – Simply Salt, Spicy, Garlic, and Golden Boy.
In the following months, we’ve popped up at breweries and markets across southwestern Pennsylvania and you can now find Forge Fried in 11 stores in four counties. We added a new flavor to the lineup – Salt & Malt – to kick off National Peanut Month in March.
We’re not making the gas station snack we originally thought we were trying to recreate. We’re making something better – using the highest quality ingredients and cooked in small batches – with the curious snacker in mind.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Pittsburgh has been so supportive and we’ve scaled, in six months, to what we thought might take years.
Due to our licensing, we are only able to sell in the state of Pennsylvania. We are currently exploring options to enable us to sell nationwide. Until then, we will continue to find retail partners and will be at area farmers markets, beer festivals, and special events this summer and fall.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Forge Fried began in 2025. While Pennsylvania is widely known as the snack food capital of the USA, there are not a lot of snack food producers in Pittsburgh – and no one making fried peanuts.
With a robust knowledge of Pittsburgh and the small business ecosystem and quite a bit of luck, we quickly turned Forge Fried into a recognizable local brand. We are very proud of our branding, from our logo to each of our flavor characters, all of which are designed by an independent artist. We hope the brand and illustrations provoke curiosity and a sense of whimsy to consumers.
While most people are familiar with roasted peanuts and many are acquainted with boiled peanuts, it’s an even smaller subset that has tried, or even heard of fried peanuts. We aim to introduce fried peanuts to a new regional audience, taking a gas station staple of the southeastern US and giving it a distinctly Pittsburgh flair.
We are proud to source ingredients locally whenever possible, commission art for our labels and stickers, and meeting people in the community who like to try new things and support local businesses like ours.
What’s next?
As previously mentioned, due to the way our production is licensed, we are only able to sell in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We are looking forward to many local events this year, but hope to adapt and scale and be able to sell outside of Pennsylvania within a year.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://forgefried.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forgefried/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Forge-Fried-LLC/61583134175963/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@forge.fried
