Lays Potato Chips, the most well-known and iconic brand of potato chips in the United States, were introduced around 1938, making them 84 years old. The story of the Lays company began in 1934 when a salesman from Nashville Tennessee named Herman Lay started a snack food operation.
Lay began his career working for Sunshine Biscuits but was laid off. He then worked for the Barrett Food Company, of Atlanta and Memphis. Lay worked as a traveling salesman, distributing potato chips to customers out of the trunk of his car.
He was relentless and persistent and would sell potato chips anywhere possible, including not only grocery stores, but road sign stands, gas stations, soda shops, hospitals, and schools.
He expanded his territory to such an extent that he made enough profit to hire employees and open his own company, the H.W. Lay Distributing Company, which distributed for Barrett. When the principal owner died, Lay purchased the company for $60,000 and by 1937 was producing his own line of snacks.
Lay headquartered the company in Atlanta and built new plants there and across the Southeast, expanding his territory to new markets rapidly.
Lays was the first company to put potato chips into sealed wax bags, which enabled widespread distribution. It was also the first snack food company to advertise on television, in 1944.
Long before the famous Lay’s catchphrase ‘Bet you can’t eat just one’ Lay’s was utilizing catchy slogans like ‘Can’t stop eating.’ He even came up with a potato mascot named Oscar. He is responsible, in just a few years, for turning the snack food industry from numerous small and local operations into a huge, national multi-million dollar industry.
