Frito-Lay

Frito-Lay, Inc. (/ˈfriːtoʊ leɪ/; FREE-toh-LAY) is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and sells snack foods. It began in the early 1930s as two companies, the Frito Company and H.W. Lay & Company, that merged in 1961. Frito-Lay itself merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company in 1965 to create PepsiCo. Since the merger, Frito-Lay operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. 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 generated annual worldwide sales over $1 billion in 2009. 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 at least 25 percent of PepsiCo's annual sales.