The story and pride behind Lay’s potato chips

It’s an American-made classic by an American inventor that has become a summertime staple for any barbecue table: Lay’s potato chips. H.W. Lay was a traveling salesman during the Great Depression when he started peddling chips out of the back of his Model A in 1931. It was how he made a living across the Southeast, said Chris Quinn, senior vice president of sales at Frito-Lay. “He believed in giving the most affordable prices and the highest quality products at an arm’s reach of every consumer,” Quinn said. Around the same time, C.E. Doolin was buying the recipe for another American classic: Frito corn chips. Doolin started making them out of his mother’s kitchen. Nearly three decades later, the two of them joined forces to create Frito-Lay. It was 1961. Now, years later, in 2018,the potatoes still come from farmers across America. Quinn said Frito-Lay sourced from 120 different farms in 25 states including Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Washington, Maine and California. Read more