Frito-Lay

Frito-Lay Company is one of the world's largest snack manufacturing companies. It is a division of PepsiCo, Inc. The company controls over 35 percent of the world market in snack chips and 60 percent in the United States.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

Some of the most popular snack chip brands manufactured and sold by the company are Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, Chee-tos, Ruffles and Lay's. Frito-Lay also markets major brands in other snack categories including Rold Gold pretzels, Cracker Jack candy-coated popcorn and Grandma's cookies. It also owns brands such as Walker's in Great Britain and Sabritas in Mexico.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html Frito-Lay generates almost 50 percent of PepsiCo's revenues and two-thirds of its profits.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

Fritos were first produced in 1932. Herman W. Lay's potato chip company was started the same year. Frito-Lay was formed in 1961 through a merger of Frito's Company and H.W. Lay and Company. Four years later the company merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company to create PepsiCo, Inc.

The Frito Company

Frito-Lay began with the merger of two snack chip companies in September 1961. Elmer Doolin had entered into the snack food industry in 1932 buying the business of a manufacturer of five-cent-per-bag fried corn chips. Doolin borrowed the $100 he needed to purchase the company from his mother and soon was cooking the Frito brand corn snacks at night and selling them out of his car during the day. He soon moved the company from San Antonio to Dallas and expanded his sales force and manufacturing capability, opening plants in Houston, Tulsa and Dallas.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

Doolin opened a manufacturing facility in Los Angeles in 1941, expanding to the West Coast. After a war-time lull, the company again expanded rapidly, partly through licensing agreements, most notably with H.W. Lay & Company, a partnership which led to their later merger. In 1948 the company introduced Chee-tos Cheese Flavored Snacks, an instant success. The company purchased the rights to Ruffles brand potato chips in 1958.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

H.W. Lay & Company

Herman W. Lay began his snack food career in 1932 as a salesman for the Barrett Food Products Company, an Atlanta-based potato chip manufacturer and later that year paid $100 to take over a Barrett warehouse in Nashville as a distributor. By 1936, Lay was manufacturing his own products and soon was distributing snack foods throughout central Tennessee and southern Kentucky. He had become successful enough that, when Barrett suffered financial difficulties in 1938, he was able to purchase the company including manufacturing plants in Memphis and Atlanta. He changed the company's name to H.W. Lay & Company, Inc., headquartered in Atlanta.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

Lay's company expanded throughout the Southeast in the 1940s and in the 1950s expanded its product line, acquired a number of weaker competitors and grew beyond the Southeast. By 1957 H.W. Lay was the largest manufacturer of potato chips and snack foods in the United States. The company operated in 30 states by 1961 following the purchase of Rold Gold Foods.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html

Mergers

H.W. Lay and the Frito Company merged in September 1961, becoming Frito-Lay, Inc. The company, based in Dallas, had revenues exceeding $127 million. Less than four years later, in 1965, Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola Company to become PepsiCo, Inc. Frito-Lay operated as an independent division within the new company.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FritoLay-Company-Company-History.html Currently there are four divisions within PepsiCo: Frito-Lay North America, PepsiCo Beverages North America, PepsiCo International and Quaker Foods North America. Products sold internationally under the Frito-Lay brand are reported by the PepsiCo International division.http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/48/48009.html

1. Fritos chips
2. Doritos chips
3. Cheetos snacks
4. Ruffles potato chips
5. Lay's potato chips
6. Rold Gold Pretzels
7. Sun Chips
8. Cracker Jack snack
9. Stacy's pita chips

• Headquarters mailing address: Frito-Lay, P.O. Box 660634, Dallas, TX 75266-0634
• Customer service phone number: 800-352-4477