Hostess is the name of a

potato chip A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appe ...

brand that was the leading brand in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

for many years after its creation in 1935. It merged with US-based

Lay's Lay's is a brand of potato chips, 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 b ...

in 1988.

History

Beginnings

Hostess was formed in 1935 when Edward Snyder began cooking chips on his mother's kitchen stove in

Breslau, Ontario Breslau is a community located within the township of Woolwich, part of the Waterloo Regional Municipality in Ontario Canada. Separated from the city of Kitchener by the Grand River, Breslau is named after the former German city of Breslau, now ...

, outside

Kitchener, Ontario ) , image_flag = Flag of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , image_seal = Seal of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_shield=Coat of arms of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_blank_emblem = Logo of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , blank_emblem_type = ...

. Potato chips remained a fairly small part of the snack food market until the 1950s, when snack foods in general became more widely available. In 1955, Snyder sold his company to E.W. Vanstone, who expanded the company greatly before selling his interest to

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, after several corporate ...

in 1959. Starting in 1981, the chips had new mascots known as the Munchies, that were used for advertisements and appeared on the chip packaging. The Munchies were three friendly, goblin-like creatures coloured red, orange, and yellow.

New chapter

The introduction of

corn chip Corn chips are a snack food made from cornmeal fried in oil or baked, usually in the shape of a small noodle or scoop. Corn chips are thick, rigid and very crunchy. Corn chips have the strong aroma and flavor of roasted corn, and are often hea ...

s to the market led to a partnership between Hostess and

Frito-Lay 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-flavor ...

(owned by

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

) in 1987, bringing

Doritos Doritos () is an American brand of flavored tortilla chips produced since 1964 by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. The original Doritos were not flavored. The first flavor was Toasted Corn, released in 1966, followed by Taco in ...

to Canada for the first time (Doritos were in Canada in the late 1970s). This move was followed by the introduction of other Frito Lay brands, including Ruffles,

Tostitos Tostitos is a brand of Frito-Lay that produces different tortilla chips and a range of accompanying dips. Varieties There are many varieties of Tostitos chips: * Tostitos ''Gold'' (and bite size ''Gold'') - a thicker and larger version of t ...

and

Cheetos Cheetos (formerly styled as Chee-tos until 1998) is a crunchy corn puff snack brand made by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin invented Cheetos in 1948, and began national distribution in the U.S. The initi ...

(

, Frito Lay's major US chip brand, was already being licensed for Canadian manufacture by another company). Hostess remained the major chip brand in Canada even after the arrangement. The partnership led to a merger in 1988, with the joint company known as Hostess Frito Lay. In 1992 PepsiCo acquired full ownership of Hostess by buying out General Foods' remaining interest.

Decline

With the brand popularity falling, in 1996 it was decided to re-brand the product as Lay's. This change presented no small amount of difficulty, as the product was already on sale in Canada via a third party. An aggressive advertising campaign by BBDO Canada featuring famous

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

players such as

Mark Messier Mark John Douglas Messier (; born January 18, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre of the National Hockey League (NHL). His playing career in the NHL lasted 25 years ( 1979– 2004) with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rang ...

and

Eric Lindros Eric Bryan Lindros (; born February 28, 1973) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Lindros was born in London, Ontario, but grew up in Toronto. He played junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) for the Oshawa Generals pr ...

launched the "new" brand in 1997, and within eighteen months Lay's was selling twice the volume of products that it had been under the Hostess moniker. Hostess has largely disappeared, and the company dropped "Hostess" from its name, becoming Frito Lay Canada. The only remaining major Hostess retail product is Hickory Sticks, a flavoured potato stick brand which maintains broad distribution on par with other Lay's Canada brands. In 2021, Frito-Lay re-introduced the salt and vinegar variety of Hickory Sticks in an unusually shaped bag for chips, being wider than it is tall.

Marketing

During its existence, the slogan for Hostess chips was "'Cause when you've got the munchies, nothing else will do. Hostess Potato Chips!"Hostess Munchies 1991 Commercial
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References

{{PepsiCo Brand name snack foods Brand name potato chips and crisps Frito-Lay brands PepsiCo subsidiaries Products introduced in 1935 Defunct brands Defunct food and drink companies of Canada Canadian companies disestablished in 1996