One of Birmingham's most iconic brands will soon be part of a Pennsylvania company.

Hanover, Pennsylvania-based Utz Quality Foods has entered into an agreement to buy Golden Enterprises (NASDAQ: GLDC), Golden Flake's parent company.

On every bag, Golden Flake boasts itself as "The south's original potato chip." Now, senior ownership will be in the North.

But Jim Ward, Senior Director of Sales and Support at Golden Enterprises, promises it will stay the South's chip. Golden Flake will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary, and all of its management and production will stay in Birmingham.

"We will be as part of Birmingham as we have been before," Ward said in an interview. "[Utz'] modus operandi, as far as how they operate acquisitions, it's the people and the brand and the culture that interest them about Golden Flake. We will continue on in what we do in the community."

Utz CEO Dylan Lissette told AL.com the Golden Flake brand and its products aren't going anywhere.

"I think that people, now more than ever, like the regionality of their snack foods. They don't want a cookie cutter thing, and the last thing I think we should ever do as someone who acquires a brand is do something really silly like eliminating that brand," Lissette said. "That's just not very smart, and we've never done that with any of the companies we've acquired."

If anything, production will increase, he said. Utz became interested in Golden Flake largely because their territories were complementary - it had operations in Louisiana and through Tennesee and the Carolinas and up North. Golden Flake's core distribution is through Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.

Utz was particularly interested in Golden Flake's Ocala plant. Utz has strong brand loyalty in the northeast - and many northeasterners move to Florida. It's hard to get chips produced in Pennsylvania distributed to South Florida - but by sharing resources to produce them at Golden Flake's Ocala plant, it won't be.

"For us, it's how do we make one plus one equal three, not one plus one equals 1.57 or something like that," Lissette said.

Golden Enterprises' shareholders will receive $12 per share. Ward said it represents about a $141 million transaction, and that includes the assumption of $7 million of debt.

"This merger will allow the Golden Flake brand to continue to grow in our core southeastern markets, while expanding the product selections for our consumers," Golden Enterprises CEO Mark McCutcheon said in a statement. "Utz is a very community oriented company and we look forward to the future that Utz and Golden Flake will create together."

The merger is subject to antitrust approval and other closing conditions, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

Golden Flake was founded in 1923 in the basement of a Hill's Grocery store in north Birmingham. In addition to chips in iconic flavors like Sweet Heat, cheese puffs, cheese curls, tortilla chips, snack crackers and several other flavored chips are made at Golden Flake's sprawling factory complex in southwest Birmingham.

In 1968, Golden Flake went public. Utz is a private company.

This isn't the first time the Pennsylvania company has bought an iconic southern brand. In 2011, Utz bought Zapp's potato chips, a quintessential south Louisiana product made in Gramercy, Louisiana. Zapp's - known for its regional flavors like Voodoo chips and Cajun Crawtators - is still made in Gamercy today and has maintained its workers there, and production volume has increased.

"We kind of look at this opportunity with Golden Flake to be a little bit larger of an opportunity than Zapp's, but much of the same," Lissette said.

This story will continue to be updated.

This story has been corrected to reflect a quote from Utz CEO Dylan Lissette . He said people like regional snack foods, not rational snack foods.