Even with the constant influx of new, healthy and innovative snack types, potato chips have remained relevant.
Since their alleged creation by a hotel chef as a way to placate a guest who had complained about a restaurant’s thick French fries, chips have become a snack staple for Americans. U.S. supermarkets, drugstores, convenience stores and mass markets, excluding Walmart, reported more than $5 billion in potato chip sales in the 52 weeks ending July 8, 2012, according to SymphonyIRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. This is more than a 4½% increase from the same period in 2011. Unit sales totaled more than 2.5 billion during this time.