Frito-Lay has been the cash cow for its parent company, PepsiCo., for a long time. When Pepsi decided to spin off its food businesses (Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut) there was no question that they would hold onto Frito-Lay. Frito-Lay has become so dominant in the U.S. salty snack food market that there have even been Justice Department investigations as to whether it represents a Sherman antitrust violation. Frito has also been very successful with its foreign expansion with dramatic growth in its international operations.
The information systems story centers around efforts during the mid-80s to build a system that would support its store-door delivery system where the route salesmen manage Frito products within the store. This includes arranging products on store shelves with the older products in the front to minimize stale products. All Frito products have a date on the package and when that date arrives the product is removed and destroyed. Hand-held computers were provided to all route salesmen with impressive benefits in managing products, routes and customers. A reduction in stale products alone paid for the $50 million hand-held computer project in its first year.
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