The Smith's Snackfood Company

The Smith's Snackfood Company is a British-Australian snack food brand owned by the American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation PepsiCo. It is best known for its brand of potato crisps. The company was founded by Frank Smith and Jim Viney in the United Kingdom in 1920 as Smith's Potato Crisps Ltd, originally packaging a twist of salt with its crisps in greaseproof paper bags which were sold around London. The dominant brand in the UK until the 1960s when Golden Wonder took over with Cheese & Onion, Smith's countered by creating Salt & Vinegar flavour (first tested by their north-east England subsidiary Tudor) which was launched nationally in 1967.
After establishing the product in the UK, Smith set up the company in Australia in 1932. Both versions of Smiths have had various owners, but were reunited under PepsiCo ownership, with the UK business being purchased in 1989, and the Australian business in 1998. Smith's Snackvend Stand is the branch of the company that operates vending machines. The Smith's brand in the United Kingdom is now a sub-brand of the main Walkers brand, while in Australia, Smiths is the main brand.
Smith's Potato Crisps was formed by entrepreneurs Frank Smith and Jim Viney in the United Kingdom after World War I. Smith had been a manager for a Smithfield wholesale grocery business which sold potato crisps from 1913. Deciding to make his own, Smith converted garages in Cricklewood, London into a crisp factory, selling to local businesses. By 1920, he had 12 full-time employees and was producing half a million packets a week. Smith conceived the idea of selling unseasoned potato crisps with a small blue sachet of salt that could be sprinkled over them. In 1927, after buying Jim Viney's share of the business, the company expanded into a factory in Brentford, London. In 1929, Smiths had seven factories in the UK and the following year it was incorporated as a private limited company. By 1934, 200 million packets of crisps were sold in Britain each year, 95 percent of which were manufactured by Smith's. In 1939, the footballers of Portsmouth won the last FA Cup final before the war on a daily diet of Smith's crisps. During World War II, crisps were packed into British troop ships and sent off to allied forces. In the 1950s, fictional matriarch Doris Archer from BBC Radio's The Archers published a cookbook advocating the use of “delicious Smith's potato crisps, crushed to farthing size” in various meals.
By 1956, the company was making 10 million packets every week. In 1960, Smith's purchased northern rival Tudor Crisps for £1 million. Smith's followed up this expansion two years later by purchasing the biscuit and wafer producer, G & T Bridgewater and the Cardiff based nut company Snackpak Food Products. Following the creation of Cheese & Onion flavour by Tayto in Ireland, Golden Wonder (Smiths' main competitor in Britain) produced their Cheese & Onion version, and Smith's countered with Salt & Vinegar (tested first by their north-east England subsidiary Tudor) which launched nationally in 1967, starting a two-decade-long flavour war.
In 1966, Smith's was purchased by the American food producer, General Mills. Smith's launched a ‘Do The Crunch' advertising campaign; in 1967 a young Phil Collins toured the UK teaching people the crunch dance. Aimed at children, Monster Munch were launched by Smiths in Britain in 1977. Originally called "The Prime Monster" (a play on The Prime Minister, and as part of a wider campaign), they were renamed "Monster Munch" in 1978. In 1978, Smith's was sold by its parent company, General Mills to the British biscuit giant Associated Biscuits.
Associated Biscuits was purchased by Nabisco in 1982, bringing Smith's under the same ownership as rival Walkers. In 1988, RJR Nabisco was purchased in a leverage buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, and to reduce debt several business were sold to French conglomerate BSN, who quickly sold on Smith's and Walkers to PepsiCo in 1989. At the time Walkers had a third of the crisp market in the United Kingdom, while Smith's had a third of the extruded snacks market, making them the market leader. Subsequently, Pepsico withdrew the brand, in favour of British brand Walkers, which was heavily marketed by PepsiCo in a campaign using former England international footballer turned television presenter Gary Lineker. Many of the products previously marketed by Smith's became labelled as Walkers, such as Quavers.
After establishing the product and name in the UK, Frank Smith moved to set up a subsidiary in Australia. Smith's Crisps were first manufactured in Australia in 1931 with an associate, George Ensor, in leased premises in Sydney's Surry Hills. They were originally made in 20 gas fired cooking pots, then packed by hand and distributed by Nestle confectionery vans.
Smith's Potato Crisps sold its early crisps in three penny packets, 24 to a tin. "Twist of salt" sachets were included before pre-salting had been introduced. In March 1932, Smith's Potato Crisps Ltd. went into voluntary liquidation as a result of the Great Depression. However, three months later, George Ensor tendered for the business put up for sale by the liquidators, and on 13 May 1932, Smith's Potato Crisps (Australia) was formed with the UK Smith's Company holding a majority interest over minor shareholders. Growth after World War II was rapid, so a continuous cooker process was introduced to replace the individual cooking pots and in 1960 the production of a one shilling pack for cinemas and a box pack for four shillings was initiated.
In 1961, Smith's introduced its first flavoured chip - chicken. It was a very popular flavour, influencing most competitors at the time to adopt a Chicken variation. Other flavours released were Original (Pre-Salted) and Salt & Vinegar. Later, in the 1970s, Barbecue was added as a flavour for Smiths crinkle cut chips, and in the 1980s Cheese & Onion was added. These five flavours - Original Salted (blue packet), Salt & Vinegar (magenta packet), Chicken (green packet), Barbecue (orange packet) and Cheese & Onion (yellow packet) have remained the mainstay flavours of the brand since the 1980s. Many other 'limited edition' variants have also been tried over the years. During the late 1980s, the company introduced the famous advertising mascot Gobbledok, a chip obsessed alien character similar to the popular characters E.T. and ALF.
In 1968, Associated Products and Distribution Pty Ltd (APD), the food group holding company in British Tobacco Co. (Aust), bought a 41.5% share of Smith's Potato Crisps (Australia)'s parent company, including all Australian shareholders. Over the next 20 years, other takeovers and new products (including Twisties and Burger Rings brands) drove growth. PepsiCo took over the company in 1998. In 1990, the APD name was replaced by CCA Snackfoods.
In 1998, the Smiths Snackfood company was Australia's largest producer of salty snack foods. It was acquired in August of that year, by Frito-Lay the second largest producer of salt snack foods in Australia, which is owned by PepsiCo. To prevent the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission from intervening for unfair trading practices Frito-Lay divested a range of brands, manufacturing facilities, including plants in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. The package was named Snack Brands Australia and was sold to Dollar Sweets Holdings. In that package included the brands sold were CC's, Cheezels, Thins and Samboy.
Despite Australians using the term "chips" for crisps, Smith's called their product crisps until as late as 2003. They are now labelled as Smith's Chips. As of 2010–2011, portions contained in "large" bags of Smith's Snackfood products have diminished, down from 200g to 175g (approximately equal to the previous 1975 large size of 6½oz).
Products produced by The Smith's Snackfood Company have been recalled on several occasions including:
In July 2016, The Smith's Snackfood Company was fined $10,800 by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for misleading representation on its Sakata Paws Pizza Supreme Rice Snacks, which included a logo with the words “Meets School Canteen Guidelines” and an image of a sandwich and apple. The disclaimer that the product had only met the 'Amber' criteria of the National Healthy School Canteens Guidelines were in small font and on the other side of the packaging to the logo. Smith's has since removed the logo from the product.