Walkers (snack foods) Walkers (snack foods) Walkers is a British snack food manufacturer mainly operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Walkers was founded in 1948 in Leicester, England by Henry Walker, and in 1989 was acquired by Lay's owner, Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo. They are best known for manufacturing potato crisps, and other, non-potato-based snack foods. It holds 56 percent of the British crisps market.<ref name="bbc.co.uk/food"></ref> The Walkers site in Leicester is the largest crisp production plant in the world, producing over 11 million bags of crisps per day and using about 800 tons of potatoes. In the 1880s, Walker moved
The Smith's Snackfood Company (green packet), Barbecue (orange packet) and Cheese & Onion (yellow packet) have remained the mainstay flavours of the brand since the 1980s. Many other 'limited edition' variants have also been tried over the years. Seven years later, Associated Products and Distribution Pty Ltd (APD), partnered with PepsiCo beverages Ltd, which had built up a significant snack food company that sold chips and nuts and bought a 41.5% share of Smith's Potato Crisps (Australia)'s parent company. Over the next 20 years, other takeovers and new products (including Twisties and Burger Rings brands) drove growth. PepsiCo took over the company in 1998.