Arch West

Filed under: Inventor — Tags: Arch West — admin @ 4:52 pm

Arch 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.When he returned to work, Mr. West pitched his idea: a crispy, triangle-shaped corn chip that would complement the company’s lighter Lay’s potato chip and the thicker, curly Frito. The original toasted corn chips were released nationally in 1966 and marketed under the Spanish-sounding name “Doritos.” An early television commercial for Doritos called them “a swinging, Latin sort of snack.” Doritos emerged as a nationwide hit and have become one of Frito-Lay’s best-selling snack foods, enjoyed by young and old.

West died on September 20, 2011. He was 97 years old.

Comments Off