21 Facts About Frito-Lay

Frito-Lay is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods.

The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks, Doritos and Tostitos tortilla chips, Lay's and Ruffles potato chips, Rold Gold pretzels, and Walkers potato crisps .

In 1965, Frito-Lay, Inc merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company, resulting in the formation of PepsiCo.

Since then, Frito-Lay has operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo.

Frito-Lay later purchased the Barrett manufacturing plant in Jacksonville, Florida, along with additional plants in Jackson, Mississippi; Louisville, Kentucky; and Greensboro, North Carolina.

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At the time of the merger, Frito-Lay owned 46 manufacturing plants nationwide and had more than 150 distribution centers across the United States.

International distribution of Frito-Lay products expanded soon after the 1965 merger, and its U S presence grew at the same time, resulting in Lay's becoming the first potato chip brand to be sold nationwide in 1965.

The most popular new Frito-Lay product launched during this era was Doritos, which initially was positioned as a more flavorful tortilla chip.

Frito-Lay acquired GrandMa's Cookies in 1980, originally founded by Foster Wheeler in Portland, Oregon in 1914, which launched nationwide in the United States in 1983.

In Canada, Frito-Lay began a partnership with General Foods-owned Hostess Food Products in 1987, before merging in 1988 to become The Hostess Frito-Lay Company.

Several new products were developed internally at Frito-Lay and launched in the 1990s, the most successful of which was Sun Chips, a multi-grain chip first sold in 1991.

Up until the mid-1990s, Frito-Lay was represented in PepsiCo's organizational structure as Frito-Lay, a single division of PepsiCo.

In 1992, Frito-Lay acquired full ownership of Hostess Food Products from General Foods, followed in 1997 by the acquisition of candied popcorn snack brand Cracker Jack, and in 1998 by multiple international acquisitions and joint ventures, including Smith's Snackfood Company, as well as Savoy Brands .

Frito-Lay continued to experiment with changes to the composition of its products, introducing Reduced Fat Lay's and Cheetos in 2002.

In 2003, Frito-Lay introduced the first products in its "Natural" line, which were made with ingredients that had been organically produced.

In 2010, Frito-Lay reformulated Lay's Kettle and Lay's flavored chips into a new variant labeled as being made with all-natural ingredients.

In late 1999, Frito-Lay asked its suppliers not to use genetically engineered corn.

Frito-Lay stated these requests were made in response to consumers' worries, and not in response to protests by the OCA, Greenpeace or other groups.

In July 2021, Frito-Lay became subject to media attention over poor working conditions at its plant in Topeka.

Frito-Lay snacks are distributed in Europe under the PepsiCo Europe operating division, previously PepsiCo International.

In India, Frito-Lay uses its international brands as well as Uncle Chipps, a homegrown brand that it bought out in 2000.