It's an American-made classic by an American inventor that has become a summertime staple for any barbecue table: Lay's potato chips.
H.W. Lay was a traveling salesman during the Great Depression when he started peddling chips out of the back of his Model A in 1931. It was how he made a living across the Southeast, said Chris Quinn, senior vice president of sales at Frito-Lay.
"He believed in giving the most affordable prices and the highest quality products at an arm's reach of every consumer," Quinn said. "Lay's became the first national brand."
Around the same time, C.E. Doolin was buying the recipe for another American classic: Frito corn chips. Doolin started making them out of his mother's kitchen. Nearly three decades later, the two of them joined forces to create Frito-Lay.
It was 1961. Workers inspected the chips, which went for 10 cents a piece, before bagging them up.
Now, years later, in 2018, not much has changed. The potatoes still come from farmers across America. Quinn said Frito-Lay sourced from 120 different farms in 25 states including Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Washington, Maine and California.
Frito-Lay said Michigan and Wisconsin were its largest growing areas.
"We source these products locally and we produce them locally and get them straight into the store in a matter of days," Quinn said.
The farmers at Black Gold Farms in Live Oak, Florida, said they've been harvesting potatoes for four generations. CEO Eric Halverson said his great-grandpa had started growing potatoes in 1928.
"We're potato people," he said. "We enjoy potatoes."
The potatoes at Black Gold Farms are loaded and trucked two and a half hours north to Perry, Georgia, where 1,230 workers are employed at just one of Frito-Lay's 30 manufacturing plants.
There, four to five potatoes go into every bag of Lay's potato chips.
Quinn said there was a ton of pride felt by the farmers and workers of Frito-Lay, knowing the hard work they put into their products.
At the Perry facility, the largest Frito-Lay plant in the U.S., Amber Hightower, a warehouse performance manager for five years, said that she and her husband played a little game in the supermarket.
"We like to look and see what Frito-Lay products are in the [shoppers'] basket and kinda count them and see, you know, people out in the grocery store," she said. "People don't realize how many products we make."
FAQs
In 1932, Herman W. Lay started a small business in Nashville, Tennessee selling potato chips made by a company in Atlanta, Georgia. Six years later Herman bought that company to form H. W. Lay & Company.
What is the interesting story behind the invention of potato chips? ›
The customer kept sending back his French-fried potatoes, complaining that they were too thick, too "soggy", or not salted enough. Frustrated, Crum sliced several potatoes extremely thin, fried them to a crisp, and seasoned them with extra salt. To his surprise, the customer loved them.
What is the number one selling potato chip in America? ›
Lay's was America's favorite potato chip brand by a wide margin in 2021/2022. Lay's accounted for nearly 41 percent of the potato chip market. The next largest contenders were Ruffles and Pringles, with 18 and 13 percent share of the market, respectively.
What is special about Lay's chips? ›
Every bag of Lay's Potato Chips in the US is made from our very own chip-perfecting potatoes grown on over 100 farms across the US and a handful in Canada. Stay tuned for more information about our farms across North America and to hear from some of our farmers!
What was the mistake with potato chips? ›
Vanderbilt wasn't a fan of the thick-cut potatoes on his plate, so one day he sent them back to the kitchen, a move that annoyed the chef. In retaliation, Crum sliced the spuds as thinly as he could, fried them in oil with some salt, and turned them into crispy potatoes.
Why are Lays chips so addictive? ›
“The combination of refined carbohydrates and fats often found in UPFs seems to have a supra-additive effect on brain reward systems, above either macronutrient alone, which may increase the addictive potential of these foods,” Gearhardt and the study's authors wrote in their new findings, published in The BMJ.
What is a interesting fact about potato chips? ›
The first recipe for potato chips was called "Fried Shavings" and appeared in a cookbook from 1824. It takes about 10,000 pounds of potatoes to make 2,500 pounds of potato chips. Potato chips were considered an unessential food during World War II, and production was stopped completely.
What was the accidental invention of potato chips? ›
George Crum, who was a chef at the Moon's Lake House in New York, accidentally invented potato chips in 1853. After a guest at the restaurant kept returning potato fries, claiming that they weren't crisp enough, Crum sliced the potatoes thinly, fried them in hot oil and added salt.
What is the lore of potato chip? ›
The earliest known recipe for chips dates to 1817, when an English doctor named William Kitchiner published The Cook's Oracle, a cookbook that included a recipe for “potatoes fried in slices or shavings.” And in July 1849, four years before Crum supposedly dissed Vanderbilt, a New York Herald reporter noted the work of ...
What city eats the most potato chips? ›
: "Detroiters eat an average of 7 lbs. of chips per year, as opposed to 4 lbs. in the rest of the country, and it takes 7 minutes for a potato chip to go from the bin to the bag!" , this particular stat isn't one to be proud of.
What are the top 10 most popular chips?
- Lay's.
- Funyons.
- Doritos.
- Popchips.
- Pringles.
- Sunchips.
- Tostitos.
- Utz.
Yes, both Doritos and Lays are brands owned by the Frito-Lay, Inc. It's very possible you've eaten some of the other snacks Frito-Lay produces. See if any of them ring a bell. Frito-Lay is a pretty sizable operations with annual revenues of more than $16 billion a year (around the size of Netflix).
What is Lays slogan? ›
Shortly thereafter, Lay's introduced what became its best-known slogan: "betcha can't eat just one".
Why do people love Lays? ›
Lays became popular due to their crinkle cut ruffled chips which were less likely to break inside the package. They also became the first snack food company to advertise on television in 1944. Lay's began producing flavored potato chips, including salt and vinegar, which became some of their most popular products.
What is the history of Lays chips? ›
Herman W. Lay dropped out of college and decided to use his sales and business skills that he honed at an impressive childhood soda stand to become a snack manufacturer. He started selling his first chips in Nashville, Tennessee in 1932.
Why are Walkers not called Lays? ›
[Pepsi] decided to keep the name Walkers in Britain where the concept of these crisps came from but all international sales would be called 'Lays' From now on, retaining the original 1930 Lays company name. The truth is the only reason Lays name still exists is marketing reasons."
Why did Lays change their name? ›
"Once Pepsi bought the English company Walkers and the American company Lays, they had a meeting on the name and which to adopt. They found that the name Walkers was too hard for non-native/fluent English speakers to say due to the W, K and R.
Why is potato hidden in chip and potato? ›
It's implied that Chip keeps Potato a secret because the other characters would react this way if they believed her to be a real live mouse. Sure enough, this happens in "Chip's School Trip" after Chip is forced to leave behind Potato in a dollhouse in a museum.
What is the story of Frito-Lay? ›
Frito-Lay began in the early 1930s as two companies, "The Frito Company" and "H.W. Lay & Company", which merged in 1961 to form "Frito-Lay, Inc". In 1965, Frito-Lay, Inc. merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company, resulting in the formation of PepsiCo. Since then, Frito-Lay operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo.
