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 (in the UK and Ireland). Each brand has generated annual worldwide sales over $1 billion in 2009.[2]
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.