The short answer: Doritos are most closely credited to Arch West, a Frito-Lay marketing executive in the early 1960s, but the origin story also involves a Disneyland restaurant using leftover tortillas.

Who invented Doritos?

  • Arch West’s role : Archibald “Arch” West, a Frito (later Frito‑Lay) vice president of marketing, is widely credited with inventing and developing Doritos as a branded, flavored tortilla chip for Frito‑Lay in the early 1960s.
  • Disneyland origin story : Before Doritos became a packaged snack, a Frito‑Lay–run restaurant at Disneyland called Casa de Fritos was cutting up surplus tortillas, frying them, and seasoning them—essentially the prototype of Doritos.
  • Why there’s debate : Some accounts say anonymous workers or a local tortilla supplier near Disneyland first came up with the fried‑tortilla‑chip idea, while Frito‑Lay and later writers credit West for turning that idea into the Doritos brand and taking it national.

Timeline in brief

  1. Early 1960s: Casa de Fritos at Disneyland starts frying leftover tortillas into seasoned chips for guests, inspired by traditional Mexican totopos.
  1. Early 1960s: Arch West sees the potential of seasoned tortilla chips and pushes the concept inside Frito‑Lay despite initial skepticism.
  1. 1964: Doritos are first test‑marketed in Southern California.
  1. 1966: Doritos become the first nationally distributed tortilla chip in the United States.

So who gets the credit?

You can think of it from two angles:

  • Corporate/brand inventor : Arch West, for formalizing the product, shaping it (triangular chips), flavoring it, naming it, and getting it produced and marketed as Doritos by Frito‑Lay.
  • Practical origin : The Disneyland Casa de Fritos operation and its staff, who were reportedly repurposing stale tortillas into seasoned fried chips before Doritos existed as a packaged snack.

Most modern references say Doritos were “invented” by Arch West at Frito‑Lay, while acknowledging that the concept grew out of those Disneyland fried tortillas.

TL;DR: If you’re answering trivia, “Arch West, a Frito‑Lay executive in the 1960s” is the accepted inventor of Doritos, but the idea traces back to leftover tortillas being fried and seasoned at Disneyland’s Casa de Fritos.

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