A distraction as we isolate and eat snack foods, like chips...

Whatever happened to Hostess Potato Chips?

Well here’s a threaded tale that reveals they were effectively killed by Pepsi.

Here’s what happened...

The epic Canadian story of Hostess Potato Chips stretches back to 1935 when Edward Snyder started making potato chips on his mother’s kitchen stove in Breslau, Ontario, near Kitchener. The potatoes were peeled by hand and salted from hand-shaken salt shakers. He used foil bags.

It wouldn’t be until 1955 that his chips went big when Mr. Snyder sold his Chip Company to E.W. Vanstone, who expanded it before he then sold it to General Foods four years later.

They became Hostess Chips & had a solid reputation for quality, using foil bags for freshness.

Hostess became the #1 potato chip in Canada and fought off US corporations that soon started entering the Canadian chip market. The genius of their marketing once again made waves when Hostess introduced “The Munchies” in 1981.

Hostess was so popular, they created giveaways inside their bags of chips, including Rock Music stickers, film tie-ins, and Munchie Merchandise prizes. They were the top potato chip in Canada and the choice of almost every Canadian kid who bought some chips in the 1980s.

This irked the American companies that their brands could not compete with the Hostess brand, leading to a plot to eliminate them.

CHIP ON THEIR SHOULDER

The 1980s were the Golden Age of many things, including snack foods, & corn based snacks were rising in popularity...

So.

Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos all took the snack stage.

Hostess didn’t have any corn based snacks and decided to enter the market by entering into a partnership with Frito-Lay, who were owned by…..PEPSI.

In 1987 Hostess and Frito-Lay joined forces to introduce a corn based chip snack called Hostess “Taquitos” and they merged in 1988. The Pepsi owned Frito-Lay now started adding their own brands into the Canadian market, which included Ruffles, Cheetos, and Doritos.

By 1992 Pepsi then bought out Hostess’ remaining interest from General Foods. This would spell doom and the eventually death of the beloved Canadian Hostess brand.

They changed Taquitos to “Zesty Doritos” ...

Yes, your Zesty Doritos are actually Hostess Taquitos.

With the introduction of other Pepsi owned chip brands such as Ruffles & “upscale brands” of chips such as Miss Vickie’s (another Canadian chip company bought out by Pepsi owned Frito-Lay in 1993) the Hostess brand was effectively destroyed by the very company that purchased it.

Pepsi made the decision to change the name of Hostess to “Lay’s” in 1996, using hockey players as spokespersons to rebrand the image of this new chip.

The Munchies were killed off, Hostess chips were quashed, and Pepsi now only keeps the Hostess name on Hickory Sticks.

Now more than ever I think we need things that make us happy & maybe the American Corporate Pepsi Machine could celebrate the #1 Canadian brand Hostess Potato Chips for its 85th Anniversary...Because in the end, when you got the munchies, nothing else will do….

Thanks, & later!