In 1932, Charles Elmer Doolin, manager of the Highland Park Confectionery in San Antonio, purchased a corn chip recipe, a handheld potato ricer and 19 retail accounts from a corn chip manufacturer for $100, which he borrowed from his mother.

Doolin established a new corn chip business, The Frito Company, in his mother's kitchen. Doolin and his mother and brother produced the corn chips, named Fritos, and had a production capacity of approximately 10 pounds per day. Doolin distributed the Fritos in 5¢ bags. Daily sales totaled $8 to $10 and profits averaged about $2 per day.

That's how it all began.

Today, Frito-Lay is the largest globally distributed snack food company in the world, with sales of its products in 2009 comprising 40 percent of all "savory snacks" sold in the United States and 30 percent of the snacks sold in the rest of the world.

Bob wrote:Doolin established a new corn chip business, The Frito Company, in his mother's kitchen. Doolin and his mother and brother produced the corn chips, named Fritos, and had a production capacity of approximately 10 pounds per day. Doolin distributed the Fritos in 5¢ bags. Daily sales totaled $8 to $10 and profits averaged about $2 per day.

That's how it all began.

Today, Frito-Lay is the largest globally distributed snack food company in the world, with sales of its products in 2009 comprising 40 percent of all "savory snacks" sold in the United States and 30 percent of the snacks sold in the rest of the world.

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Remember the phrase, working for peanuts....?

Had the price of peanuts back in the 50's-70's been as inflated as today, my extended family would all have been millionaires several times over.

I love those momma's kitchen stories. With today's regulations, that dream is more of a nightmare.

when I clicked on the thread to read your reply this is what I saw.

I love Hank Hill's obssession with Peggy's Frito-pie made w/ Wolf brand chili....gourmet dining at it's finest.

I remember when we thought it was a special treat to have Frito's in the house.

Herman Lay began his career at Sunshine Biscuits and was fired because of the Great Depression. He then worked as a traveling salesman for the Barrett Food Company, when he delivered potato chips to his customers in his Ford Model A.
In 1932, he borrowed $100 and founded the H.W. Lay Distributing Company based in Atlanta. He peddled potato chips from Atlanta to Nashville. By 1937, he had 25 employees, and had begun producing his own line of snack foods.

The H.W. Lay & Company merged with The Frito Company in September 1961 to become Frito-Lay.

His son, Herman Lay Jr., founded a Pepsi bottling company in Dallas. And as a result of that, Frito-Lay and Pepsi ended up merging to become PepsiCo.

W_T_M wrote:I love Hank Hill's obssession with Peggy's Frito-pie made w/ Wolf brand chili....gourmet dining at it's finest.

http://www.kitchenriffs.com/2011/10/frito-pie-with-chili.html