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who made doritos

Doritos were developed in the early 1960s by Archibald Clark West, a Frito (later Frito‑Lay) marketing executive, after he encountered seasoned fried tortilla chips being made from leftover tortillas at the Casa de Fritos restaurant in Disneyland.

Quick Scoop

Who “made” Doritos?

  • The person most widely credited with inventing Doritos is Archibald Clark “Arch” West, a vice president of marketing at the Frito Company (later Frito‑Lay).
  • He got the idea after seeing surplus tortillas cut up, fried, and seasoned at Casa de Fritos, a Frito‑run restaurant in Disneyland in Southern California.
  • Frito‑Lay then turned the concept into a mass‑produced product, launching Doritos nationally in 1964.

A bit of origin story

In the early 1960s, Casa de Fritos reportedly used stale or leftover tortillas by cutting, frying, and seasoning them instead of throwing them away.

Arch West saw the potential in these crunchy tortilla pieces as a packaged snack and pushed Frito‑Lay to develop and market them.

The first official Doritos were released in 1964 as simple toasted corn chips, with flavored versions (like taco and nacho‑style) coming shortly afterward.

Who deserves the credit?

Different people and places influenced what became Doritos:

  1. Casa de Fritos at Disneyland
    • Fried leftover tortillas into seasoned chips, providing the prototype for Doritos.
  1. Arch West at Frito‑Lay
    • Recognized the business potential, championed the idea, and led development and marketing of Doritos as a branded snack.
  1. Frito‑Lay (now part of PepsiCo)
    • Turned the idea into a large‑scale product and built the brand into a global snack line.

Because of this, most histories say Doritos were “invented” by Arch West, but also note that the original concept came from the Casa de Fritos kitchen at Disneyland.

TL;DR: Doritos came from leftover tortillas fried and seasoned at Disneyland’s Casa de Fritos, and Arch West of Frito‑Lay turned that idea into the Doritos brand we know today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.