Inside the Potato Chip Business (Maybe of Interest for Non CDL Drivers)

They have UTZ chips on sale I guess 2 for $6.00 at Giant Eagle.
Actually $6.00 is kind of expensive for 2 bags of air, so it's no wonder they can pay so well. Figure 42 cases of chips is over $2,000 in revenue.

 

Chips aint cheap these days. Nothing is for that matter -

 

Alright so Frito-Lay is the biggest chip maker nationwide, but I personally prefer the Pennsylvania Collection. It seems that an awful lot of chips and pretzels and cheese puffs (haven't had those in forever) come from Pennsylvania particularly Hannover, PA area.

However my favorite snack food manufacturer is Snyder of Berlin, PA. When ever I buy cheese doodles which isn't very often I always make sure to purchase Snyder of Berlin, PA.

 

Home Pride was one of our best sellers, but they we're expensive. I think they were about $5 a loaf. We also had Home Pride turkey stuffing which was a big seller around Thanksgiving.

We need to get @JPenn in here. I'm curious as to how the chip guys get paid. I think they're commission based, but I don't know if they get a base salary like bread guys do though.

 

Cool video on how chips and cheese doodles are made.

 

Yeah my mom always bought the Home Pride bread in the Yellow Bag which was wheat. We never ate Wonder Bread ever. Well never really ate white bread and then for some reason or another we just stopped eating Home Pride all together and that was that. Now we eat a mixture of either Shwables (Youngstown, Ohio) or Nickles Baker (Navare, Ohio) depending on what store we get bread from.

Once in a while Orlando Bakery (Cleveland, Ohio) too, if I buy bread at Heinen's.

 

@Sho Nuff
How big was the factory you worked out of at IBC. It must have been pretty big, I mean IBC made a lot Wonder Bread, Home Pride, Hostess and Twinkies did different factories have different lines and make different things?


Like did certain factories only concentrate on like desserts and then maybe another factory just made bread and stuff was shipped in from all over to the depots?

 

Yeah it was pretty big. We had about 90 drivers when I first started. You needed about 5 years experience to be even considered. It dwindled down to about 55 by the time they closed down.

The place I worked out of dealt mainly with Bread and Hostess Brands Cakes. When we purchased Drake's Cakes, they pretty much kept them separate. Same with Dolly Madison. But all of our products were delivered to our depots where the bread truck sales drivers would deliver the loads. Some of them had sales drivers at the main distribution plants. Bimbo Bakeries pretty does the exact same thing that we did, but they are more floor loaded drop and hook bread trays, where as we had our loads on bread racks that we had to unload.

 

Wonder Bread. Because it makes you wonder how they can call this stuff bread...

 

I never liked Wonder Bread either. It was too fluffy, airy and lite in my opinion. I always bought our competitors bread, which was Stroehman. Yeah...I know, how can I work for a company and not support it's products. Simple, I never liked the texture. A good bread is what'll make or breaks a sandwich. It's like making a Hoagie or a Philly Cheesesteak, the roll is the most important part of the sub. Over in Philly, there's really only one roll that is used to make great subs, and that Amoroso's.

As far as chips are concerned, Doritos has always been my favorite. All the potato chips out their pretty much taste the same to me, whether it's Lays, Wise, or Utz. I'm wouldn't be surprised if Doritos is Frito Lays biggest seller, because I don't know anybody that doesn't like Doritos. They're Doritos Jacked was a big flop in my opinion. They were too big and too crunchy. I don't know if they even sell them anymore.

Pringles was anouther favorite of mine. They're sour cream and onion or barbeque flavored chips were the best. They're slogan hit it right on the spot, because you definitely just can't eat one.