Matutano (officially ''Matutano Snack Ventures, S.A.'') is a producer and distributor of

snacks A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snacks are pre ...

and

potato chips Potato chips (North American English and Australian English; often just chip) or crisp (British English and Hiberno-English) are thin slices of potato (or a thin deposit of potato paste) that has been deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, ...

with headquarters in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, operating the markets of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

(here through its subsidiary ''Matutano Unipessoal Lda.''). The company was founded in 1965 by Luis Matutano Jover, and since 1971 is part of multinational

Frito Lay Frito-Lay, Inc. (; ) is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and sells snack foods. It began in the early 1930s as two companies, the Frito Company and H.W. Lay & Company, that merged in 1961. Frito-Lay itself merged with the ...

. Currently, Matutano distributes for the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

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

snacks as

Lays 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, as both Lay's and Fritos are brands sold by the Fr ...

Fritos Fritos is an American brand of corn chips that was created in 1932 by Charles Elmer Doolin and has been produced since 1961 by the Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo. Fritos are made by deep-frying extruded whole cornmeal, unlike the similar torti ...

Cheetos Cheetos (formerly styled as Chee-tos until 1998) is a crunchy corn- cheese 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 United ...

Doritos Doritos () is an American brand of flavored tortilla chips produced by Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. The concept for Doritos originated at Disneyland at a restaurant managed by Frito-Lay. In 1966, Doritos became the first ...

and Ruffles among other brands.

History

The company originates in the 1950s, when spanish businessman Luis Matutano Jover founded in

a factory of snacks based on

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es, a business his family exploited since 1873. Its production level was fairly modest until 1965 when the company's owner associated with the food group '' Pet Milk'' from

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to form the original Matutano brand, with an initial staff of 42 employees and 8 delivery routes. In 1969 the company bought Rick SA, founded by Augusto Aboitiz Baroja, with a production factory in

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

, and the company started to expand to whole

. In 1971 the multinational

, part of

, got the whole shares of the company and introduced most of their products in the Spanish market, as

(1975),

(1976), Boca Bits (1981),

(1984) and Ruffles (1986). In 1975 the characteristic logo of Matutano was adopted, a smiling face, and the company's image became popular. During the decades of 1970s and 1980s the company became the leader of Spanish market in potato chips and snacks, and started its expansion in

. With the arrival of

potatoes in 1997, Matutano changed its corporate image of all its products to adopt the Frito Lay logo. But the change was a failure, and in 2009 PepsiCo put back the smiling face as its corporate identity. The company motto is: ''Y hoy ¿Has sonreído?'' (Have you smiled today?)

References

External links

* {{PepsiCo Frito-Lay brands Snack food manufacturers of Spain Manufacturing companies based in Barcelona Food and drink companies established in 1965 Spanish companies established in 1965 Spanish subsidiaries of foreign companies

History

See also

References

External links