How Doritos Were Made from Disneyland Trash

walt disney's disneyland when disneyland opened its doors the founder wanted to create an unforgettable experience he wanted it to feel like the american dream bursting with energy optimism and innovation little did he know it would be part of the legacy behind one of america's most beloved snacks before skyrocketing to over one billion dollars in sales it was considered garbage and tossed away in disneyland's trash [Music] in the early 1930s charles elmer doolin was about to lose his family's business the highland confectionary in san antonio sales went down after their ice cream lost its quality it was beyond charles's control since the companies that made them mistletoe ice cream and dairyland got into a price war so charles decided to diversify into other products he came up with the countless ideas but realized they were either not feasible or unique even more devastating was the height of the great depression the loss of sales coupled with the country's economic conditions led to the business being in its worst financial shape to survive charles considered moving to houston to work for a popsicle company but he changed his mind after discovering a street vendor at a gas station the vendor was owned by a man from oaxaca named gustavo olgin using a handheld potato ricer he made corn chips with massive flour that was deep fried in corn oil and salted charles ended up working for gustavo as a fry cook and soon discovered something that would change his life while the corn chips were popular and sold at many lucha libre arenas gustavo wasn't happy he longed to return to mexico and teach soccer again so he made the decision to put out an ad and sell the business for a hundred dollars charles was hooked on the corn chips and considered them a gold mine he wanted to buy the business but didn't have that kind of money lying around fortunately his mother believed it would be successful so she pawned her wedding ring for 80 dollars and gave it to charles gustavo then told charles he could pay him the remaining 20 later after purchasing the business charles called the corn chips fritos he started making them in his mother's kitchen with her and the rest of the family's help in his model t ford he drove all over the midwest to convince store owners to sell them it was a hard sell since fritos was just one of many corn chips available charles even got a job as a late night cook just to have enough money to return home eventually frito's sale started to pick up and charles and his family struggled to keep up with the demand they used handheld potato ricers to make them which was a long and tedious process that's when charles started thinking like a true entrepreneur since he and his brother knew a lot about mechanical engineering from their father they decided to make a machine with a hammer to mass produce the fritos by the 1950s charles moved operations from his mother's kitchen to her garage and then the house next door he later opened two manufacturing plants in dallas and tulsa and invented new products including cheetos inspired by the founder of the ford motor company henry ford the manufacturing plans were modernized by adding an assembly line and conveyor belt charles also started growing his own strain of corn he hired farmers throughout texas to plant different varieties until he found the right taste it became the secret ingredients in fritos that helped the company expand still charles wasn't satisfied he wanted to do more than fill households with his products he wanted to open his own restaurant not just anywhere but inside the happiest place on earth disneyland right after disneyland opened charles managed to convince the founder walt disney to let him open a restaurant in frontierland walt gave him the green light in exchange for corporate sponsorship the restaurant was called casa de fritos it served the fusion of mexican and american cuisine and frito inventions including their famous frito chili pie unfortunately charles never got to see how the frito company would continue to grow he passed away just four years after opening casa de fritos his daughter khalida doolan and others have since revealed that gustavo wasn't the only one who planted the seeds for his company's legacy including the birth of doritos aside from charles family and employees others played an even bigger part through maintaining a mexican tradition and pursuing their own american dream some of their stories date back to before and after charles time in 1896 a mexican-american businessman named jose bartolome martinez opened the first massive flower mill in the u.s while it was in an immediate success jose wasn't satisfied he was persistent about making a product that would make it easier to make masa which was used to make tortillas and tamales it nearly drove him into debt years later it finally paid off jose managed to create dehydrated corn flour where anyone could add water to it and masa would emerge jose trademarked it as tamalina tamalina was a groundbreaking invention that lifted a heavy burden for mexican women they were expected and accustomed to making nasa the ancient way as the indigenous people in mexico and central america did it involved chucking corn leaving it to soak overnight and grounding the flattened blanched kernels in a matate all of this required getting up hours before sunrise by the 1900s jose opened a new factory that could mill 60 000 pounds of tamalina and 60 000 pounds of fresh masa per day since it used a new production process it was difficult to estimate the volume of masa needed each day which created leftovers rather than throw it out jose decided to use it to make corn chips he settled on a triangle shape with a medium thickness so that it could be used with dips he was the first person to commercialize corn chips and suggest that restaurants serve them with guacamole salsa or bean dip many who claim to have been the originator of the first commercial corn chips were actually copying a product that was already on the market jose's many genius ideas paved the way for others to pursue their own american dream including a man from sonora named alex morales by 1906 alex and his wife made a living by selling tamales from a wagon they later expanded the business into a restaurant and then a tamale factory called alex foods it was only 10 minutes up the street from disneyland by the 1950s alex foods had a fleet of 32 shiny trucks that delivered their tamales and other food products across southern california they also won a contract to service many of the restaurants within disneyland including charles casa de fritos restaurant one year after charles passed away a salesman from alex foods saw leftover tortillas and casted defrito's trash he walked up to the cook and suggested that he fry them up and make tortilla chips instead of throwing them out at the time casa de fritos served complimentary fritos instead of tortilla chips with their customers meals they never thought of offering tortilla chips instead as the authentic mexican restaurants did the cook took the salesman's advice after adding his own unique blend of seasoning it tasted much different than a typical tortilla chip when the customers tried it they were hooked casa de fritos added them to the menu as a regular item without telling the frito company one year later the frito company merged with hw lei and company and was renamed to frito-lay their four main products were fritos cheetos lays and ruffles together they brought in 127 million dollars in revenue it wasn't until frito-lay brought in an outsider that the revenue grew to billions that outsider was the vp of marketing archwest he not only took frito national but also discovered the tortilla chips in 1914 arch was born to scottish immigrants in indianapolis his father passed away when he was still very young leaving his mother to care for him and his brother alone as a domestic worker she struggled to feed or clothe them so she made the difficult choice of sending them to an orphanage after high school arch attended franklin college on a scholarship to study business he graduated in 1936 and then served in the navy in the pacific during world war ii when arch returned from the war he worked as a traveling salesman and then later a madison avenue advertising manager even though he grew up in an orphanage he was not risk-averse he moved from job to death and did well along the way but it certainly wasn't because he was a great solver of formulas he just had a good sense of what people might like it and might be willing to spend their money on by 1960 arch started working for the frito-lay company in dallas as their vp of marketing coming from new york he was the first outsider they brought in and his colleagues made sure he knew it he was a proponent you know every once in a while somebody has to take a beating in their life that they don't deserve so he got beat up early on because he talked and thought differently just persevered two years into the job arch took his wife and three kids on a trip to southern california while driving he spotted a tiny mexican shack on the side of the highway between los angeles and san diego curious he pulled over and ordered a small container of tortilla chips it was like nothing he had ever tasted before and had a crunch to them besides shape the crunch was the biggest factor that made them different from fritos fritos were fried pieces of cornmeal where tortilla chips were baked before frying making them crunchier arch started thinking about what could be done with tortilla chips if the frito company made it a substrate different flavors could be added they could then target different market segments by creating local favorite flavors which was difficult with fritos tortilla chips just might be frito-lay's next big thing arch thought to himself when he returned to work he gathered his fellow executives in a boardroom and pitched his idea why would americans want tortilla chips when they already had perfectly good corn chips they argued they were concerned that arch's idea would eat up fritos and cheetos market by taking away from their sails there their instructions were clear do not pursue tortilla chips when he first presented the idea to the to the frito board remember this was the only guy in the room who was not trawling in a texas draw they said that's not a very good idea because it will cannibalize freedom sales arch was so confident about his idea that he secretly funneled his own money to an off-site facility to develop his concept afterwards he tested the market in san diego he also came up with a new plan for a second pitch he would not only hand his colleague samples but market them as being more than just tortilla chips they were doritos a name that he had already received approval for two years earlier arch traveled to mexico city to trademark fritos with the company's legal department their application was denied it was considered too generic since fritos just meant fried in spanish instead of packing his bags and leaving arch decided to stay we might as well try to invent something else that goes with cheetos and fritos he thought to himself arch started thinking about how the color fritos was considered gold more than anything else sensing that would give him a head start he asked someone what gold was in spanish oro they told them arch felt it had potential but it was missing something so he asked what little was in spanish ito the two words paired together made him think of the letter d and that would work well in the beginning that's how he came up with the name doritos meaning little pieces of gold when arch made a second pitch he told his colleagues remember that idea you hated well i had the chance to dust off my resume in case you don't like it but i did a quick test and it jumped off the shelves and didn't move the needle at all on frito's sails finally arch was given the green light but after launching arch realized he had more convincing to do doritos sold decently in the southwest where people knew the pointed tip could easily scoop globs of dip whereas the rest of america didn't know what to make of them especially since they sounded mexican but didn't taste mexican arch refused to give up he even suggested a riskier idea make doritos taste like a taco he instructed his colleagues laughed and told them that's not a flavor that's a thing of course it's a thing you know that i know that but there's 97 of the united states that doesn't know that arch argued his colleagues didn't understand the possibilities of flavor technology which had become more advanced by then arch was one step ahead he knew the flavor of a taco could be added to a tortilla chip and pushed the company to experiment they gave into his demands and launched taco flavored doritos a few years later it not only won over arch's colleagues but the rest of america it also paved the way for even more iconic flavors nacho cheese and cool ranch one of the things that uh my father demonstrated to me was you just keep on working eventually you can outlast the other guy you just don't stop and he was a competitor that way by 1991 doritos became the biggest selling line of frito-lay products bringing in 1.3 million dollars in revenue the nacho cheese flavor accounted for more than 60 percent of doritos sales in 2013 frito-lay partnered with taco bell to release the doritos locos taco it sold at the rate of 1 million a day and became one of the most successful fast food inventions of all time to this day frito lay has yet to share the real story behind how arch pushed for the launch of doritos they own any of the ip that he created but yeah they don't want to i think be seen as not having seen the opportunity it comes down to this if you know what you're doing is right don't ask permission and he knew what he was doing was right so he was just like he asked permission but then permission wasn't granted so he just did it anyway and then you know took the risk himself and it paid off this is the story of how a mexican tradition and the pursuit of the american dream led to creating one of the country's most beloved snacks for more inspiring stories and advice from today's most successful leaders don't forget to subscribe to our channel

Channel: Hook

Views: 1,828,555

Rating: 4.8870997 out of 5

Keywords: how doritos are made, how dorito chips are made, how doritos were made, doritos, doritos nachos, doritos commercial, doritos founder, doritos inventor, the rise of doritos, the rise and fall, company man, how to make doritos, inspirational stories

Id: dNIV4gDuaPY

Length: 15min 47sec (947 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/iheartbaconsalt]

Now that's a good meal time show!