bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
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There seem to be a couple of stories, like the story about Frito-Lay's Flamin' Hot variety. All the stories name Frito-Lay exec Arch West.
The one I've heard most was that it was invented at Casa de Fritos (currently Rancho del Zocalo) at Disneyland in the mid 1960s after corn tortillas were about to be tossed and then someone suggested that they could be cut up and fried as chips. This version of the story says that one of the Frito-Lay executives (Arch West) in charge of the sponsorship found out about it and then contracted with a local company to make them, but later moved production to Frito-Lay's own factories.
But then there's a conflicting story that he found them at a roadside Mexican food stand in Southern California.
This one actually mentions both stories and seems to believe that the Disneyland origin is the most likely.
The one I've heard most was that it was invented at Casa de Fritos (currently Rancho del Zocalo) at Disneyland in the mid 1960s after corn tortillas were about to be tossed and then someone suggested that they could be cut up and fried as chips. This version of the story says that one of the Frito-Lay executives (Arch West) in charge of the sponsorship found out about it and then contracted with a local company to make them, but later moved production to Frito-Lay's own factories.
Casa de Fritos contracted their tortilla production to a company called Alex Foods. One of the salesmen from Alex Foods, making a delivery to Casa de Fritos, noticed stale tortillas in the garbage and gave the cook a little tip: fry them and sell them as chips instead of throwing them away. Casa de Fritos began making these fried, seasoned chips to enormous success, but didn’t report this new menu item to the Frito-Lay company.
A year later, the new VP of Frito-Lay, Archibald Clark West, dropped by the restaurant without warning and saw hundreds of jaws dancing to the sweet crunchy symphony of profit potential. “This s--- is gold!” he (probably never) said, christened them “Doritos,” and made a deal with Alex Foods to produce them as a snack. When Doritos started to get big, production of the chips was moved to a bigger factory in Tulsa, effectively edging Alex Foods off the billion-dollar train. Thankfully, the Morales family, who own Alex Foods, weren’t ruined by the loss.
But then there's a conflicting story that he found them at a roadside Mexican food stand in Southern California.
Mr. West had worked as a traveling cheese salesman and Madison Avenue advertising manager handling the Jell-O account before he had a chip epiphany.
He was on a family vacation in Southern California in 1964 when he first bought a grease-smeared bag of toasted tortillas at a roadside shack.
As marketing vice president at Frito-Lay, Mr. West immediately sensed he had stumbled upon a snacking phenomenon.
This one actually mentions both stories and seems to believe that the Disneyland origin is the most likely.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn't Fritos who provided Casa de Fritos with its tortillas and other Mexican-food ingredients for the restaurant, but rather Alex Foods, an Anaheim-based company that had its roots in the tamale wagons that used to roam Southern California in the early part of the 20th century and probably best remembered for its XLNT tamales. Alex Foods was enough of an Anaheim institution that Walt Disney had the company stock most of the food needs for Disneyland's restaurants in the park's early years. I interviewed Michael Morales (grandson of Alex Foods founder Alex Morales) for my book, and he told me how in the early 1960s, an Alex Foods route salesman visited Casa de Fritos and suggested to the manager of the place that instead of throwing away any misshapen or leftover tortillas it got from Alex Foods, they should be cut triangles and fried, with the results offered to customers. It was a hit, but Casa de Fritos never bothered to alert Frito-Lay about its new discovery–until the day Arch West visited the restaurant around a year after these ur-Doritos made their debut.
West, according to Morales, was immediately enthusiastic and went to his bosses with a proposal to mass-produce flavored tortilla chips for a national audience. Frito-Lay agreed and contracted Alex Foods to produce Doritos, which it did out of its factory 10 minutes north of Disneyland on the corner of what's now Lemon Street and Carl Karcher Way. Doritos debuted in 1966 to immediate success–at one point, according to Morales, Alex Foods was producing Doritos 24 hours a day, so popular they were.
