| Type | Snack foods |
|---|---|
| Owner | Diamond Foods (since 2010) |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1978 (as N.S. Khalsa Company) |
| Markets | USA, Canada, Europe, Middle East |
| Previous owners | Lion Capital (2006-2010) |
| Website | http://www.kettlefoods.com/ |
Kettle Foods is an international manufacturer of potato chips, tortilla chips, and nut butters based in Salem, Oregon, United States, with a European and Middle East headquarters in Norwich, United Kingdom. As of 2006 they were the largest natural potato chip brand in the U.S.[1] The company, founded in 1978 by Cameron Healy, has been owned by Diamond Foods since 2010.
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The company was founded by Cameron Healy in 1978 as the N.S. Khalsa Company; it produced its first potato chips in 1982.[2] In 1988, following a motorcycle trip taken by the company's founder and his son, Sunny Keer Kettle Foods established a UK branch in a converted shoe factory in Norwich; the branch moved five years later to a newly-built factory on the outskirts of Norwich, its current UK home.[3]
In 1999, new packaging for Kettle's tortilla chips, produced by Printpack Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, won a 1998 Top Packaging Award from the Flexible Packaging Association. The new packaging met Kettle's requirements for a "window in the bag, seals that would hold up when shipping at high altitudes, improved clarity, stiffness and barrier, as well as a film that wouldn't wrinkle" and also extended the shelf life of the chips by 30%.[4] The new bag was made from a 0.38-mil (0.0097 mm) oriented polypropylene, laminated to a 1.5-mil (0.038 mm), five-layered coextrusion that included ethylene vinyl alcohol, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and a metallocene-based polyethylene, with a layer of LDPE as the laminant. Matte-finished inks flexographically printed on the outer layer gave the new bag a "paper look" consistent with Kettle's potato chip packaging.[4]
In 2003, the company installed the largest solar array in the Pacific Northwest to use more green energy at their Salem plant.[5][6] In September 2007, the company opened its second US production facility in Beloit, Wisconsin, lured there by $500,000 in state economic development money.[7] Kettle built the first manufacturing plant to be awarded gold certification in the LEED program from the United States Green Building Council.[7]
The company was sold in 2006 to a private equity group, Lion Capital LLP, for $280–320 million.[8]
In October 2007, campaigns were launched on Facebook calling for a boycott of Kettle Foods products[9] following allegations that the company was attempting to dissuade workers at its Norwich factory from joining trade union Unite. The company denies the claim but acknowledged that it has taken advice from Omega Training,[10] a UK subsidiary of U.S. company The Burke Group, specialists in union avoidance.[11]
In August 2008, California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a settlement with Kettle Foods, the maker of Cape Cod Potato Chips, and Frito-Lay, for violating the state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act; the state alleged back in 2005 that the potato chips from those companies failed to document that they contained high levels of acrylamide, a carcinogen. Kettle Foods paid $350,000 in civil penalties and costs and agreed to cut their potato chip's levels of acrylamide to 275 parts per billion by 2011, an 87% reduction.[12][13]
Lion Capital put Kettle Foods up for sale in December 2009, with an asking price of around USD $700 million[8] and in February 2010 sold it for $615 million to California-based Diamond Foods, which owns brands such as Pop Secret.[14] The sale was finalized in the following month.[15]
The Kettle Foods UK office also supports a network of independent distributors through which Kettle Foods' products are made available in the Middle East and in European countries outside of the UK, including; Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden.[16]
Kettle features all-natural products, with its best-known brand being their batch-cooked extra crunchy potato chips. Their potato chips are fried using expeller-pressed high monounsaturated safflower and/or sunflower oil. The company has occasionally held contests to introduce new flavors. The 2006 contest winners were Tuscan Three Cheese and Buffalo Bleu; past contest winners include Cheddar Beer and Spicy Thai.[17]
The following is a list of potato chip flavors sold by the company as of 2009. The list is illustrative of the types of flavors sold by the company and is not meant to be exhaustive or up-to-date.
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