page_title: Frito-Lay
section_title: The Frito Company
hierarchical_section_title: Frito-Lay / History / The Frito Company
context_page_description: Frito-Lay, Inc. 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. Each brand has generated annual worldwide sales over $1 billion in 2009.
  Frito-Lay began in the early 1930s as two separate companies, The Frito Company and H.W. Lay & Company, which merged in 1961 to form Frito-Lay, Inc. Four years later in 1965, Frito-Lay, Inc. merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company, resulting in the formation of PepsiCo. Since that time, Frito-Lay has operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. Through Frito-Lay, PepsiCo is the largest globally distributed snack food company, with sales of its products in 2009 comprising 40 percent of all "savory snacks" sold in the United States, and 30 percent of the non-U.S. market. In 2018, Frito-Lay North America accounted for 25 percent of PepsiCo's annual sales.
context_section_description: In 1932, Kansas City, Kansas-born Charles Elmer Doolin (1903–1959), manager of the Highland Park Confectionery in San Antonio, Texas, 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, with his mother and brother, produced the corn chips, now named Fritos, and had a production capacity of approximately 10 pounds per day and roughly 30 cents per product. Doolin distributed the Fritos in 5¢ bags. Daily sales totaled $8 to $10 and profits averaged about $2 per day. In 1933 the production of Fritos increased from 10 pounds to nearly 100 pounds due to the development of a "hammer" press; by the end of the year, production lines were operating in Houston and Dallas. The Frito Company headquarters also moved to Dallas to capitalize on the city's central location and better availability of raw materials. In 1937 The Frito Company opened its Research and Development lab and introduced new products, including Fritos Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Fritos Peanuts, to supplement Fritos and Fritatos Potato chips, which had been introduced in 1935.
  In 1939, the company purchased Fluffs pork skins and incorporated the Dallas business. Frito relocated the operation from Haskell Avenue to a new facility at 2005 Wall Street. Alice Rupe, who was one of Fluffs' original six all-woman crew, was placed in charge of operations. In 1940, she was named Assistant Treasurer and Manager; in 1949 she was promoted to Treasurer.
  In 1941, the company opened its Western Division in Los Angeles with two sales routes, which would become the prototype for The Frito Company's distribution system. In 1945, The Frito Sales Company was established to separate sales from production activities. Expansion continued with the issue of six franchises through the Frito National Company in the same year. In 1950, Fritos were sold in all 48 states. The Frito Company issued its first public stock offering in 1954. At the time of Doolin's death in 1959, The Frito Company produced over 40 products, had plants in 18 cities, employed over 3,000 people, and had sales in 1958 in excess of $50 million. By 1962, Fritos would be sold in 48 countries.
caption: An animatronic vending machine of The Frito Kid at Disneyland's Casa De Fritos (currently Rancho Del Zocalo).
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