 | |
| Industry | Snack |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founder |
|
| Headquarters | Delaware, United States |
| Owner | VSB OpCo, LLC |
| Website | popchips |
Popchips is an American brand of popped potato and corn products marketed as similar to potato chips. They are manufactured by processing potato starch at high pressure and temperature, in a process similar to that used for puffed rice cakes. [1]
Keith Belling is a co-founder and CEO of Popchips which was created in 2007. Belling teamed up with Patrick Turpin, and created a new popped chip. [2] The company created a chip that utilizes potato and corn products that are cooked at a high pressure and temperature. [3] Turpin co-founded Popchips, Inc., and serves as its President.
In November, 2015 David Ritterbush was named CEO of the company, replacing Paul Davis. [4]
The company was rated by Forbes as among America's top 20 most promising companies in 2011. [5] Forbes also reported that investors in the company included Ashton Kutcher, David Ortiz, Jillian Michaels, and Sean Combs. [6]
Popchips received widespread criticism for their May 2012 video ad campaign featuring actor Ashton Kutcher. [7] The campaign featured Kutcher as an Indian man 'looking for love' in a dating ad-style spoof. Kutcher's use of brown-face make up and a stereotypical Indian accent was deemed racially insensitive and offensive and received backlash from online viewers and members of the Indian-American community. [8]
Ashton Kutcher was the first celebrity to endorse the company, with 13 million followers on Twitter. Kutcher boosted the publicity of Popchips. [9] In 2012, Popchips also gained another celebrity endorser, Katy Perry. Since 2012, Perry featured in advertisements and also helped to launch her own flavor of Popchips, Katy's Kettle Corn. [10]
Since 2007, Popchips has won the following awards: [11]
One of the 8 Most Addicting Foods - Yahoo! Shine
Popchips provides its snack through a network of retail stores including Target, Safeway, and Walgreens [12] in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland and also online.
Popchips are produced in a number of flavors in addition to the original flavor:
Potato
Potato Ridges
A potato chip or crisp is a thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. The basic chips are cooked and salted; additional varieties are manufactured using various flavorings and ingredients including herbs, spices, cheeses, other natural flavors, artificial flavors, and additives.
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Pringles is an American brand of stackable potato-based chips invented by Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1968 and marketed as "Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips". The brand was sold in 2012 to Kellogg's.
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Bugles are a corn snack produced by General Mills and Tom's Snacks.
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Lay's is a brand of potato chips with different flavors, as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in the United States. The brand is also referred to as Frito-Lay because both Lay's and Fritos are brands sold by the Frito-Lay company, which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo since 1965.
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Humpty Dumpty Snack Foods is an American food company, operating as a subsidiary of Old Dutch Foods, that packages and sells snack foods. The company is named after the nursery rhyme character and features the character as the company logo. Humpty Dumpty products are generally sold in New England, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
Munchos are a potato chip snack food manufactured from dehydrated potatoes by Frito-Lay.
Diamond Foods was an American packaged food company based in San Francisco, that marketed nuts and other snack foods. Diamond Foods was acquired by Snyder's-Lance in 2016, and as of 2018, Campbell Soup Company owns Diamond Foods's former snack brands; Diamond of California, Diamond Foods's nut business, is owned by Blue Road Capital.
Fruit Gushers are a Betty Crocker-branded fruit snack introduced in 1991. They are soft and chewy with a fruity-juice center.
Red Hot Riplets is a kind of spicy potato chips sold in St. Louis, Missouri. Red Hot Riplets are ridge-cut chips covered with hot chili pepper and sweet barbecue powdered seasoning. The label describes the flavoring as "St. Louis Style Hot Sauce".
Jays Foods, Inc., is an American manufacturer of snack products including potato chips, popcorn and pretzels. Jays Foods was founded in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, and is currently a subsidiary of Snyder's of Hanover. Operating in several Midwestern states, Jays Foods' potato chips and popcorn maintain significant shares of their respective markets.
Shearer's Foods, LLC is a U.S. manufacturer and distributor of snack foods. Founded in 1974 as Shearer's Snacks in Brewster, Ohio, the company now has factories in Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, Oregon, Virginia, Iowa, Minnesota and Ontario, with worldwide distribution.
Frito-Lay is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods. The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks, Doritos and Tostitos tortilla chips, Lay's and Ruffles potato chips, Rold Gold pretzels, and Walkers potato crisps. Each brand generated annual worldwide sales over $1 billion in 2009.
Takis are a Mexican brand of rolled corn tortilla chip snack made by Barcel, a subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo. Fashioned after the taquito, it comes in numerous flavors, the best selling of which is the chili-lime "Fuego" flavor, sold in distinctive purple bags. Besides the rolled corn chips, Takis also produces a number of other snacks with the same flavor lines, including a number of different potato chip varieties, corn stix, popcorn, and peanuts.