Chip on his shoulder

This item is big news, from LA to India to Wall Street. Really. Fair dinkum.

Let the chips fall where they may.

'Doritos' creator passes away

‘Doritos’ creator to be buried with the snack that made him famous Arch West, credited with the creation of the popular American snack food 'Doritos' has passed away, and according to his family he will be buried with the chips that made him famous.

Relatives of West said that they plan to pay tribute to him with the snack itself by sprinkling it over his body before he is buried.

"We are tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn. He'll love it," The Sun quoted his daughter Jana Hacker as telling the Dallas Morning News .

Arch West dies, will be buried with chips

West, who was 97 when he died of natural causes last week, was a former Frito-Lay executive. He reportedly came up with the idea of Doritos when he was on vacation with his family in Mexico and came upon a snack shack selling fried tortilla chips.

By the 1970s, Doritos was one of the best-selling chips in the Frito-Lay arsenal, but the chips that will accompany West to his grave are quite different from those the company released more than 40 years ago.

Doritos were given a big overhaul in 1995, when Frito-Lay made them 20% larger and 15% thinner. Frito-Lay also got rid of the sharp angles on the chip, giving it rounded corners.

Also, the company eliminated trans fats from the chips several years ago.

Food Marketer Struck Gold With Doritos

After he failed to persuade his bosses to copy the product as a companion to the company's corn-based Fritos and Cheetos, Mr. West secretly spent part of his budget on the project anyway.

Introduced nationally in 1966, Doritos—"little bits of gold" is how Frito-Lay translates the name—were a hit in plain and what the company called "taco" flavors. The Nacho cheese flavor, which Frito-Lay said was a blend of cheddar and Romano, debuted in 1972 under Mr. West's guidance.

The chips were aimed at the youth market, marketed as "the with-it chip." Doritos became Frito-Lay's second-biggest seller, behind Lay's potato chips.

Mr. West was a native of Franklin, Ind. He grew up in a Masonic home for boys after his father, a Mason, died. Mr. West won a scholarship to Franklin College and became a cheese salesman.

After serving as a gunnery officer in the Navy during World War II, he took a job as a food marketer at Lever Brothers. He worked on marketing campaigns for Jell-O.

But it didn't make Mr. West rich. "It's not like we got royalties," said his daughter, Jana Hacker. Mr. West was also involved with developing other products, including Funyuns.

Mr. West shared his marketing expertise with Texas picante sauce manufacturer Eric Pace, persuading him to embrace the synergy of selling his salsa in the chips aisle of the grocery store instead of the condiments aisle, with ketchup.

He remained proud of his big hit with Doritos, and during a recent hospital stay insisted his family bring big bags of them for the nurses to snack on.

So, Guambat expects to have a bag or three of Mr. West's chips as he heads off to Margaritaville, Kauai. When the chips are down, the tough get more chips.

Make a note, Mickey.