

X AND O CHEETOS LICENSE
PepsiCo also granted a license to the Strauss-Elite company to distribute the Cheetos snack. Īs of 2011, Cheetos are produced, marketed and distributed under three different PepsiCo operating divisions: PepsiCo Americas Foods (which includes Frito-Lay in the United States and Canada, Sabritas in Mexico and Latin Americas Foods in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru ), PepsiCo Europe and PepsiCo Asia, Middle East & Africa. Most of the competing cheese-flavored snacks are distributed in specific regions of the U.S., and as of 2010 Cheetos remains as the top-selling cheese puff in America. While Cheetos was the first snack food of its kind, competing products in the snack food category have since emerged-including Utz Cheese Curls, Herr's Cheese Curls and Wise Cheez Doodles, along with Planters' Cheese Puffs and Cheese Curls. Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company to form PepsiCo in 1965, prompting further distribution of Cheetos outside of North America. At the time, Cheetos was one of four large snack food brands produced by the company, which had annual revenues of $127 million. The success of Cheetos prompted Doolin and Lay to merge their two companies in 1961, forming Frito-Lay Inc.

in 1948, along with a potato product called Fritatos. Lay for marketing and distribution, and Cheetos were introduced nationally in the U.S. This led Doolin to partner with potato chip businessman Herman W. The cheese-flavored snack sold quickly, but Doolin did not have the production or distribution capacity to support a nationwide launch. Ĭheetos were invented in 1948 by Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin, who cooked early test batches in the Frito Company's research and development kitchen in Dallas, Texas. As Cheetos are sold in more than 36 countries, the flavor and composition is often varied to match regional taste and cultural preferences-such as Savory American Cream in China, and Strawberry Cheetos in Japan. The original Crunchy Cheetos are still in production but the product line has since expanded to include 21 different types of Cheetos in North America alone. In 2010, Cheetos was ranked as the top selling brand of cheese puffs in its primary market of the United States worldwide the annual retail sales totaled approximately $4 billion. In 1965 Frito-Lay became a subsidiary of The Pepsi-Cola Company, forming PepsiCo, the current owner of the Cheetos brand.

The initial success of Cheetos was a contributing factor to the merger between The Frito Company and H.W. Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin invented Cheetos in 1948, and began national distribution in the U.S. Cheetos (formerly styled as Chee-tos until 1998) is a crunchy corn puff snack brand made by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo.
