About Frito Lay

In 1932, C.E. Doolin entered a small San Antonio cafe and purchased a bag of corn chips. Mr. Doolin learned the corn chips manufacturer was eager to sell his small business, so he purchased the recipe, began making Fritos corn chips in his mother’s kitchen and sold them from his Model T Ford. That same year, Herman W. Lay began his own potato chip business in Nashville by delivering snack foods. Not long after, Mr. Lay purchased the manufacturer and formed H.W. Lay & Company. The company became one of the largest snack food companies in the Southeast. In 1961, H.W. Lay & Company merged with the Frito Company, becoming Frito-Lay, Inc. In 1965, Frito-Lay, Inc. merged with Pepsi-Cola to form PepsiCo.