Small chip companies stand up against towering Frito-Lay

CHICAGO Small, regional snack food makers, like Kettle Foods and Kitchen Cooked, are persevering in spite of the salty-snack food jauggernaut that is PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay unit, according to a Chicago Tribune article.

This success is made all the more notable after the financial failure of Chicago’s former snack-food leader, Jays Foods, which over the last five years lost ground to Frito-Lay, forcing Jay’s to file for Chapter 11 and make a tentative deal Thursday to sell its assets to another food company.

Frito-Lay reports annual potato chip sales almost six times more than Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pringles and second-largest U.S. Potato chip brand, and 14 times greater than Pa.-based Utz Quality Foods.

Although cracking a national market can be difficult for snack food-makers, a few regional companies have managed to go national. Snyder’s of Hanover, Pa., for example, has become the nation’s pretzel market leader in the past few years, overtaking Frito-Lay’s Rold Gold brand, according to Information Resources.