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Doritos history? I'll have a bag...Weird History Food is going to get your fingers nice and sticky red on this one because we're talking all about the history of one of the most beloved chips: Doritos. Weird History Food will take you through Doritos' surprising origins and its ties to Disney. Yes, that Disney. Crunch away on this one and watch the damage to the roof of your mouth.
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In the pantheon of branded tortilla chips, none stand as tall nor as mouth-roof-ripping as Doritos
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The first tortilla chips to be launched nationally, Doritos paved the way for salty snack treats to thrive in America's collective mouths
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But while Doritos are almost synonymous with stoners, parties, and cookouts today, the crunchy treat rose from decidedly humble and unexpected beginnings
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So today, we're taking a look at the history of Doritos. Okay, lick the red dust off your fingers
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This one has some bold flavor. The story of the world's most delicious flavored tortillas started in 1955
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when the corporate conglomerate worlds of Frito-Lay and Disney collided. That year, the snack food giant and the house of Maus
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teamed up to open an authentic Mexican restaurant called Casa de Fritos in Disneyland
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It wasn't long before the restaurant became a hit. Nothing makes Space Mountain more thrilling
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than riding it with a belly full of enchiladas. A local tortilla factory, Alex Foods
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supplied tortillas for some of the restaurant's dishes. One day, a salesman from the company stopped by
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and noticed kitchen workers throwing away stale tortillas. Aghast, he suggested the workers cut up the stale tortillas
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fry them, and serve them to guests. In other words, the beloved junk food began as literal junk
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The chips became a massive hit among park visitors, but nobody was thinking about a junk food empire yet
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Not until Arch West, Frito-Lay's vice president of marketing at the time, whose name sounds like a yoga move, visited the park in 1964 and took a bite of the chips
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He immediately fell in love and convinced his bosses to let Alex Foods mass-produce them for Frito-Lay
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In one of his final interviews published by Maxim in 2011, West noted Doritos were unique among other chips at the time
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He said Doritos circumvented the normal R&D process. New products typically came from the lab, but our spicy friend was a more organic invention
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West pitched the idea of cutting the chips into triangles to reduce waste
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Then it was simply a matter of coming up with a name. While some sources claim the name Doritos came from the Spanish word doradito, meaning little golden
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West wove a slightly different tale. He was inspired by the word oro, which means golden
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He then added the ito suffix to make sure customers knew it was part of the Frito brand of products
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As for the D, West just decided to put the letter in front of his made up word on a whim
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The chips were such a hit that Alex Foods couldn keep up and production of Doritos moved to Frito Tulsa plant shortly after In 1966 the Frito company released Doritos to the public and the chip became an overnight success
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Since then, numerous flavors have come and gone. The chips have starred in some memorable as well as some awful ad campaigns
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Nacho cheese flavor Doritos brand tortilla chips. West was given accolades for his role in creating Doritos
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And when he passed away in 2011, he was laid to rest with a snack in his casket
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hopefully with some antacids too. When he was interred at Restlin Memorial Park on October 1, 2011
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his daughter sprinkled some Doritos on his urn as part of the funeral, saying he'll love it
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While a common sight today, branded tortilla chips like Doritos weren't always a staple of the grocery store snack aisle
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In the 1940s, a woman named Rebecca Webb Carranza became a pioneer in producing tortilla chips in the United States
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Carranza ran the El Zarope tortilla factory and decided to take some of the misshapen tortillas home for a party
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She cut them into triangles and fried them, essentially creating what would become the tortilla chip
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She soon began selling them as tort chips at her deli and factory, and later had success selling them all along the West Coast
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When Frito-Lay unveiled Doritos a short time later, they became the first tortilla chip to be launched nationally in the United States
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Unfortunately, they were still a few years away from achieving icon status
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Their inaugural flavor, released in 1966, was toasted corn. Yeah, it was chip flavored
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Toasted corn proved to be a runaway success. And while the flavor was discontinued in 2019 in the USA, you can still snag some in the form of lightly salted Doritos if you're willing to go across the pond
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1967 introduced the magnificent and popular taco flavor to the world. It was also a great success and made Doritos a household name
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Then nacho cheese flavor arrived in 1972 and subsequently ruined all other snack foods forever
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Seriously, they could have just stopped right there. You can't approve perfection
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However, the brand continued to experiment with other flavors from the 1970s onward
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There was even an attempt at sour cream and onion Doritos for a short time
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Some things are better left unmade. Fortunately, it was discontinued sometime during the 1980s
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And while it made an appearance as a limited-time throwback flavor in 2012
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it remained tragically locked in the Doritos vault alongside the Frito Bandito
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Hey, maybe you like better some lead, huh? As one of America's favorite chip brands
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Doritos released several unique flavors throughout the 80s and 90s including Cool Ranch New Cool Ranch flavored Doritos They taste as good as they crunch Despite being one of the prime Dorito flavors
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Cool Ranch Doritos didn't enter the junk food scene until 1986, 20 years after the first Doritos hit the shelves
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I know, it's weird. Feels like we've known each other forever. Eventually, Doritos experimented with other types of chips as well
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including 3D Doritos, which are basically a spicier version of Bugles. Other chip ventures included small tube chips called Rollitos
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dual-flavored chips called Doritos Collisions, baked chips, and chips with different mystery flavors
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which sounds like a fun idea until the mystery flavors turn out to be things like Cheeseburger and Mountain Dew
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two things that go hand-in-hand with Doritos, but were never meant to go on Doritos
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And if you do have a favorite flavor, hopefully it's not one that's been discontinued
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Just like the legendary sour cream and onion-flavored Doritos, flavors of the chip get retired regularly
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Sometimes it's because of a limited time promotion or an experiment. Other times, it's like Mountain Dew and cheeseburgers getting put out to pasture
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Whatever the case, there are a ton of Doritos flavors and styles that are no longer on the
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store shelves. There was even a Chester's cheese flavor that was available for a short time that combined
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the powdery deliciousness of Cheetos with the aerodynamic majesty of Doritos. The flavor debuted around 1995, but it was discontinued shortly after its debut
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The similar fate befell Jumping Jack Cheese Doritos. It might seem hard to believe, but today's Doritos are a little bit different from the
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original product. In 1994, the chip underwent a $50 million redesign to make them larger and more flavorful
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What else would you expect from a brand whose one-time slogan was, attack the sack with a snack that fights back
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The redesign produced Doritos that were 20% larger and 15% thinner. The new and approved chips also carried more flavor seasoning and had rounded corners
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Why the rounded corners? The change coincided with a 1995 lawsuit against the brand brought by a man named Charles Grady
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who insisted the chips were dangerous. While demolishing a bag of America's favorite flavor-dusted snack
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Grady claimed to suffer an esophageal tear at the hands of the tortilla chips
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He sought to bring in expert testimony from a retired professor who performed plenty of tests
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on the chip. Although, notably, none of the tests involved actually chewing a Dorito
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court eventually threw the case out because it smacked of a high school
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science experiment and didn't have any bearing on the consumption of foodstuffs. Sometimes
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a bag of chips can be a little too spicy In 2015 one British Dorito fan got more than she bargained for when she picked up a bag of Doritos roulette chips Although in the UK they called crisps
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Have you seen my crisps? Despite the fact that this is obviously incorrect
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True to their name, the roulette-branded Doritos contained a few incredibly spicy chips in each bag
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There was even a prominent warning on the package stating, warning, some of these chips are ultra spicy
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That warning is only going to make kids want them more. According to a 2015 report in The Guardian, a student at George Pinder School in Scarborough
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ate a packet of the chips at lunch with her one day and began to experience breathing trouble
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The chip was so spicy, it nearly triggered the student's asthma, although luckily the episode passed without an attack
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The incident elicited a generic response from Doritos' corporate spokesperson, stating, We were sorry to hear about what happened
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We do warn people to expect a seriously spicy experience with Doritos roulette
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and we make this clear on the pack and in adverts. In other words, when you decide to party with Doritos Roulette
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you're accepting a small amount of risk. Yo, the game is the game. In 2021, the food blog Delish announced the brand would make a comeback soon
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Today, they found a new popularity on TikTok under hashtag DoritosDareToBeBurn. Speaking of Doritos on TikTok, the craziest development in the snack foods history
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is arguably the time a teenage girl sold a jacked-up Dorito for the price of a new car
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According to a 2021 Business Insider report, 13-year-old Queensland native Riley Stewart
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found a strangely puffy chip in her bag of Doritos. Stewart asked her followers what to do
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After receiving irresponsible but boring advice like put it in a museum, she did what most of us would do in her situation
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She put it on eBay for an opening bid of 99 cents. After her TikTok video attracted over 4 million views
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her eBay listing caught the attention of Doritos officials, who bought the puffed-up chip for $20,000, praising Stewart's entrepreneurial spirit
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While the saying goes, the only two things certain in life are death and taxes
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there's actually a third certainty, inflation. And not even the mighty Dorito is immune
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Recently, inflation has caused one of the most beloved tortilla chips of all time
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to reduce the volume of its bags. Frito-Lay told Newsweek earlier this year that each bag of Doritos would now contain five fewer chips
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that effectively reduced the size of Doritos currently on the shelves from 9.75 ounces
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to 9.25 ounces. While that may not sound like much, nothing riles up people more than smaller portions
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Despite this injury, the brand is still going strong and retains its popularity today
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Just have to buy an extra bag if you want the same number of chips. And more Doritos usually never hurt anybody