Origin of Doritos

Archibald C. West is credited with inventing the triangular corn chips called Doritos, which means ‘little bits of gold’ in Spanish. He was an executive vice president of Frito-Ly Inc.

The story began when Arch West passed by Casa de Fritos and noticed customers eating the chips. He reportedly diverted money from other budgets for quiet research on a new product line, which eventually became Doritos after higher ups failed to share his enthusiasm for this variants of corn chips.  He asked the Morales family to mass produce them.

West presented his bosses with a plan to market tortilla chips for national release, with Alex Foods its maker. Frito-Lay bought all the equipment the Morales family needed to make chips.

The name was likely elected because it rhymed with Cheetos another popular snack food manufactured by Frito-Lay.

Arch West and David Pace, the inventor of Pace picante sauce, realized that if they displayed their products together, they’d both sell more.

Doritos brand tortilla chips were releases in 1966, the forts tortilla chip launched nationally.

By 2010, the chip beloved by everyone from toddlers and teenagers to stoners and the infirm was earning Frito-Lay $5 billion a year.
Origin of Doritos

History of tortilla chips

The traditional method to produce tortillas from corn was developed by Aztec Indians in the region of Mexico. As early as the 1890s, US cookbooks featured recipes for tortillas. Yet many of the recipes departed form Mexican traditions and seem designed to minimize preparations time.

Tortillas are employed in America to make tacos, enchiladas, burritos and many other Mexican style foods and are also the base for various snack foods, such as tortilla chips.

Tortilla chips were first mass produced in Long Angeles in 1940s. Rebecca Webb Carranza produced the first tortilla chip as a way to make use of rejected tortillas when she discovered that the discarded fried tortillas were becoming popular as a snack.

The chips were sold for a dime a bag at their El Zarape Tortilla Factory. The Tortilla Association credited Rebecca for inventing the tortilla chip in 1990s, giving her the Golden Tortilla award.

By 1950, Popular Mechanics magazine referred to Los Angeles as the home of the tortilla chip.

Tortilla chips became popular outside of California in the late 1970s as they competed with corn chips. Salsa is often paired with tortilla chips and has captured significant portion of the American condiment market since the 1980s.

The tortilla chip was designated as the official state snack of Texas in 2003.
History of tortilla chips