Frito-Lay, which released the first-ever Cheetos cookbook in November, also shared the following statement with the Times: "We value Richard's many contributions to our company, especially his insights into Hispanic consumers, but we do not credit the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos or any Flamin' Hot products to him.". I came up with the Flamin Hot name on my own, Greenfeld replied. Prize winners included a unicorn, a football player, and a Flamin' Hot Cheetos giraffe. Their first meme moment came in that same year, in a 2012 viral rap video, Hot Cheetos and Takis, a song written and performed by a group of kids as part of an after-school program in north Minneapolis. The warm, gooey cheesy perfectly complement the Hot Cheetos crunchy and spicy exterior. In its restaurant division, Pizza Hut was clawing its way into delivery to fend off Dominos, and Taco Bell resorted to free soda refills to undercut the competition. Eventually, you get sick of Cool Ranch. They were originally served as side dishes at Texas t-shirts when they first appeared in 1948, according to the Frito Company. But everywhere I looked, I saw it ready to explode.". When Enrico came in, he promoted Carey to oversee a new vending machine and warehouse division in early 1992, and then to division president of Frito-Lay West, based in the Bay Area, at the end of that year. Greenfeld, the Flamin Hot team leader, didnt see the story of the scrappy janitor who invented Flamin Hot Cheetos until the summer of 2018, when she happened upon a blog post on the Esquire website. 2. Apparently, the puffy, melt-in-your-mouth texture of Cheetos tricks the brain into thinking that the food is low-calorie, a phenomenon called "vanishing caloric density." He received a number of accolades from both community groups and PepsiCo CEOs along the way. After testing recipes and outlining a marketing strategy, Montaez burst forth with a kernel of an idea: Flamin Hot Popcorn, which will soon make its debut.. Capsaicin, however, isnt the only substance in Flamin Cheetos that provides benefits. I think that [the film is] going to inspire people to do the right thing. Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994, and Greco worked in Frito-Lays Canadian division until the early 2000s. His work has also garnered him several commendations, such asbeing named as one of the most influential Hispanics in corporate America by Hispanic Lifestyle magazine,Montaez has also beeninvited to the White House on several occasions, and has presented at a special United Nations event. Cheetos . He was overjoyed when I helped him turn his idea into a reality. new investigative report from the Los Angeles Times, This Flamin Hot Cheetos ice cream is weird but we cant look away, Hoda and Jenna try the new Cheetos popcorn. Warm up the cheese sauce in the microwave or on top of the stove. Anaya is said to have quickly improvised a dish by slicing some cheese and jalapeos, and placing them on top of some tortilla chips. If Lil Xan had an ulcer or some other previously existing stomach issue, then yes, eating a ton of Flamin' Hot Cheetos or another super-spicy food could do some damage, but healthy people who are eating their favorite spicy snack food in moderation shouldn't have to worry about it. In another viral campaign, Flamin' Hot Cheetos decided to hit the runway at New York Fashion Week in 2019, with a debut collection fromthe House of Flamin' Haute. Dredge each cheese stick into the egg mixture, followed by flour, another egg wash (so it's a double coat), and the . Siewczynskis recollection of the Sabrositas marketing campaign aligns with what Montaez describes in his memoir though Montaez attaches his story to Flamin Hot products, not the Sabrositas launch. Heat up the cheese in a heat-safe container or bowl as soon as possible to prevent it from melting. Some might call that a bargain. Eva Longoria directed a movie about Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Michele Thatcher, chief counsel in PepsiCos global human resources department, wrote that she and the legal team know Richard well, were aware of his book and movie projects, and were unsure what problem, if any, there might be with his story. We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market. Salsa with a spicy kick or salsa with a medium or hot flavor. The man who didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos Richard Montaez has for years told a story of how he dreamed up Flamin' Hot Cheetos while working as a Frito-Lay janitor. One of the earliest newspaper articles about the product corroborates that detail: A Frito-Lay spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News in March 1992 that our sales group in the northern United States asked for them., Fred Lindsay, a retired Frito-Lay salesman from the South Side of Chicago, feels that he can be more specific: Im the one that was responsible for getting us into Flamin Hot products.. Did you know that some of the ingredients in Flamin Hot Cheetos have very powerful effects? When asked how that timeline fits with the 1990 Flamin Hot trademark and test market, Carey insisted that Montaez is the creator of Flamin Hot Cheetos. At The Hustle, Zachary Crockett describes Montaez's childhood as a son of a Mexican immigrant in Southern California. Pizza covered with Flamin' Hot Cheetos and dill pickle chips, massive deep-fried s'mores and the usual array of snacks and sweets will be tempting guests at the LA County Fair in Pomona. His second memoir, Flamin Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Mans Rise from Janitor to Top Executive, is out in June from an imprint of Penguin Random House. Now a bestselling author and motivational speaker, Montaez advocates for diversity in business. By the time he got promoted to corporate headquarters in Plano, working for the UDS business shorthand for up and down the street, meaning any liquor store, sundry shop or mini-mart smaller than a grocery store his idea had been taken up by the marketing department. The ingredients, thats the magic of the product, Carey said. Today,Montaez helps provide college scholarships for young Latinos. Carefully slice an "X" through the top portion of . The U.S. News and World Report article from December 1993 focuses on businesses finding success by empowering their employees. [1] [2] Richard Montaez is the author of an upcoming memoir Flamin' Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man's Rise from Janitor to Top Executive. An internal promotional video for the Cheetos brand from the first quarter of 1991 serves as further proof that Flamin Hots were already out in the world. Owens recalls that she assigned the project to a new employee: Greenfeld. Montaez invented the Flamin' Hot Cheeto after a broken machine on the Cheetos assembly line spit out a batch of plain Cheetos, without the cheese powder dust. He just didnt make Flamin Hot Cheetos. Its unclear whether the producers ever informed Longoria, whos set to direct the film. Though nacho cheese was invented over 60 years . The crunchy snacks are always right at your fingertips, whether theyre dipped in a creamy dip or eaten straight from the container. Montaez made it, from rags to riches, from factory floor to corporate suite. The company had been the reigning champ of salty snacks for decades, ever since Frito Co. and H.W. In an interview, Carey, 69, initially said that he first met Montaez after becoming division president for Frito-Lay West in December 1992, and that Montaez pitched him a set of products targeted at the Latino market. Mac and cheese crusted "doughnuts". I'm certainly not going to allow it to happen to me.". Although Montaez has at times said he was working as a janitor when he pitched Flamin Hot Cheetos, Frito-Lay said its records show he was promoted to machinist operator by October 1977, shortly after his hiring. IE 11 is not supported. 05-01-23. In his new memoir, Montaez writes that he tapped into the local network of women hosting Tupperware parties to get Flamin Hot Cheetos out to customers in Southern California as a way to bolster the struggling test market. The man behind Flamin' Hot Cheetos didn't stop at just changing the world of snacks. The movie, Flamin' Hot, is set to be directed by Eva Longoria. Lynne Greenfeld, former Frito-Lay employee. Capsaicin is a component of the powder that is found in a variety of spices. Richard has a net worth of approximately $14.4 million, according to one source who estimates that he earned $1,700,000 as a PepsiCo CEO and $20,000,000 as an additional compensation package. The story is about overcoming adversity and racial discrimination.. The cheese-flavored snack sold quickly, but Doolin did not have the production or distribution capacity to support a nationwide launch. Many have recently been deleted. Frito-Lay wrote that a product or flavor extension is the work of a number of people across functions as diverse as R&D, sales and marketing, all of whom are proud of the products they help create.. The truth is, buddy, this snack idea was conceived by him as a result of his brilliant mind. The producers of the film and the publisher of Montaezs latest book did not respond to requests for comment before publication of this article. A whole bag of Nacho Cheese might . Hot Cheetos are one hell of a drug.". Of all the people who are in PepsiCo or around PepsiCo, I have the most experience, he continued. Mom, Im going to give you credit for my website. Bring the sauce to a boil and reduce to a simmer. The . He said that he suggested strongly that Montaez retire when he did, in 2019, if he wanted to pursue his career as a motivational speaker, memoirist and film subject. More than a dozen former employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself say otherwise. spanish Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ikaGVmkV7zFwrra6RiAOw/videosEat thanksgiving dinner with me:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Sz_7tN1rsHi . Flamin' Hot tells the story of Richard Montaez, who rose from janitor to PepsiCo executive after inventing the spicy version of the snack. Chrissy Callahan covers a range of topics for TODAY.com, including fashion, beauty, pop culture and food. Flamin Hot Cheetos became a cultural phenomenon in the 2000s. The inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos says that he has a PhD in being Poor, Hungry, and Determined. Montaez appears to have made it to at least the ninth grade he is listed in the freshman class section of the Chaffey High yearbook of 1972 but disappears from the areas yearbooks after that. But the people who had worked on the original Flamin Hot line werent watching viral videos or reading food blogs targeted at young audiences. He had no idea just how popular Cheetos would become and how they would take off. Around that time, Montaez began working on a line of products pitched specifically at the Latino market in the Los Angeles area: Sabrositas. In the early 1970s, a man named Richard Montaez was working as a janitor at the Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The Flamin' Hot Cheetos x Forever 21 fashion collection wasn't exactly haute couture, but it was a start. This was his company back then. Montaez got a job at the Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga in the late 1970s. If that story existed, believe me, we would have heard about it, said Ken Lukaska, who worked as a product manager for the core Cheetos brand when Flamin Hots were rolling out nationally. Richard Montaez is an author and businessman. Dont make the mistake Montaez made. The debunking of his claim to fame has caused pain and backlash, particularly among the Latino community. The janitor position paid $4 an hour with benefits. Over the decades, the institutional memory had been lost. The majority of these calories come from fat, with each serving containing 16 grams of fat. He had noticed that Cheetos didn't have any spicy flavors, so he seasoned the plain corn puffs he had gotten with spices and chili powder to make them hot and spicy. Flamin Hot Cheetos are one of his most popular products, and his net worth is attributed to his success in the food industry. Images that Montaez has posted to his Instagram account show that the Sabrositas line included Flamin Hot Popcorn, two types of Fritos Flamin Hot and Lime and Chile Corn Chips and a Doritos variety billed as buuelito-style tortilla chips. Potato chips, pretzels, corn puffs for a long time, it seemed like every snack food that could be invented already had been. Montaezs own Instagram account accumulated tens of thousands of followers, and his TikTok following now tops 100,000. Lots of products have grown into hits, he said, only after a charismatic leader comes along. Most of his peers only hoped to grow up and work in the town's factory which is exactly where he ended up. Sam Dean is a business reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering the technology industry in Southern California. That's because the chemical makeup of Cheetos really does trick the brain into wanting more. Unlike the mainline brands Fritos, Doritos, Cheetos and Lays whose managers were expected to serve as custodians of just one product, Single Serve was organized around a format: individually wrapped products made for cramped mini-marts and customers with just a few quarters to spend. Schools have banned the snack altogether over concerns about its popularity with children. Six of the former employees remember inspiration coming from the corner stores of Chicago and Detroit. Frito-Lay has been making nacho-cheese-flavored Doritos since the 1970s, and gas stations or movie theaters often have one of those cheese pumps to add gooey yellow goodness to chips. 65 really protect you? Montaez took the Cheetos home and dusted them with chili powder, an idea Montaez credits to the grilled corn dressed with lime and chili powder sold by a local street vendor. April 28, 2023, 11:39 AM PDT. As a result, he decided to drop out of high school, and soon afterentered the work force. Open the bag of Cheetos and place the bag onto a flat surface. The night wasn't just about watching the fashion show, though. One photograph, posted to Instagram in October 2019 but now deleted, shows four pieces of lined notebook paper, labeled mild, reg, hot and extra hot, with Cheetos piled on top of each. Frito-Lay had something called the method-improvement program, looking for ideas. Greenfeld, who now goes by her married name, Lemmel, said shes very proud of leading the team that put Flamin Hots into the world, and for coming up with the Flamin Hot brand name. It's a story that has everything, and Hollywood seems to agree, because there's going to be a Flamin' Hot Cheetos movie. Early life Montaez was born to a Mexican American family in Ontario, California. Some of it has to do with their texture. Not only has he worked with brands like KFC and Taco Bell to help them market to Latinx consumers, but he also does community outreach and gives college scholarships to Latinx students. When we consume this spice mix, our bodies feel a sense of warmth, which can help alleviate pain. That inspired Montaez to think outside the box. Certain school districts in three states, California, Illinois, and New Mexico, have banned Flamin' Hot Cheetos, both because they aren't nutritious, and because they "may create a brain response similar to what is seen in individuals who are addicted to illicit substances.". "Latinos who have made it like myself have a responsibility to open doors to younger generations and teach them that they can do it," he explained to Fox News Latino(via Inc.). Though some of the items are inspired by the plain jane Cheetos, other items sport red flames in honor of the spicier snack. "We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market." According to our records, McCormick, Frito-Lays longtime seasoning supplier, developed the Flamin Hot seasoning and sent initial samples to Frito-Lay on Dec. 15, 1989, the statement said. Not only can he speak to the importance of valuing all employees, regardless of race or origin, but also to the importance of hard work, persistence, and just plain putting yourself out there. More than a dozen. Most of the original Flamin Hot team had retired by the 2000s, but the few who remained let the story spread unchecked. Montaezs story of the janitor who had invented Flamin Hot Cheetos picked up traction, serving as fodder for blog posts and online videos. Most of them had already left the company by the early 2000s. "Latinos who have made it like myself have a responsibility to open doors to younger generations and teach them that they can do it," he said. And he remembers a creation story, but one that focused on Lime and Chile Fritos, not Flamin Hot Cheetos. An earlier version of this article said Lynne Greenfeld and Miguel Lecuona attended business school at Northwestern. The food wasn't your usual "pour gas station nacho cheese into a bag of hot Cheetos," but rather an upscale look at how they can be incorporated into more sophisticated takes on comfort food dishes. In 2019 it was announced that the teen retailer was closing 7,000 stores and might be filing for bankruptcy protection. The business school they attended was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As for that film that's being made about his life? That might explain why, even if your mouth is burning and your stomach is churning, you can't help but reach for another handful of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. He retired in 2001, and he died while snorkeling in the Cayman Islands in 2016. But cheese is amazing and we must acknowledge its powers on other foods. "I realized there's no such thing as 'just a janitor' when you believe you're going to be the best," Montaez said in the same interview. One day, a machine broke in the assembly line, causing some Cheetos to not get dusted with the bright orange cheese powder, so Richard took some home and put chili powder on them. Even better is when the warm cheese makes the chips slightly soggy on the outside. The way Frito-Lay would tell it, one of their executives, a man named Arch West, went somewhere to the wrong side of the tracks in the 1960s and went to a Mexican restaurant to get this snack, which was basically tortilla chips and cheese, like the song says. I said this is a fun story; this shouldnt be a controversial story; your inclination to dramatize the story a little bit, youve got to keep away from that.. Nobody was telling me, This is how executives work. I wasnt a supervisor, I was the least of the least, he said. The Hollywood Flamin' Hot Cheetos pop-up in 2018, The Flamin' Hot Spot, was even more flashy, with bad-boy restaurateur Roy Choi in charge of the menu. According to snackhistory.com, Takis is said to have been invented by someone named Morgan Sanchez, although there is little online to confirm the claim. It's inspired fashion lines, fashion shows, and restaurants; its fans range from school childrento famous rappers and many of them end up with gastrointestinal distress. The Times found no public comments from him on Flamin Hot Cheetos or any Flamin Hot product. Flamin' Hot Cheetos have made appearances in more casual restaurants, too. Montaez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance. Very interesting place. Frito-Lay corroborated many of the details of this account, writing that as early as 1989, there were regional competitive spicy products on the market, including a spicy, bright-red potato chip from the Chicago snack company Jays. A guest at the The Flamin' Hot Spot in Hollywood, California in 2018. The true origin story of Flamin Hot Cheetos, according to interviews with former Frito-Lay employees, records and the company itself, took place on mini-mart shelves and in corporate offices. Despite this, the snacks quickly became popular and are now available all over the world. Leading the Flamin' Hot cast is Jesse Garcia as Richard Montaez. Today, they are one of the most popular snacks in the world. When the Flamin Hot line first entered test markets in the summer of 1990, Robert Beeby was leading Frito-Lay. "Make sure that floor shines," Montaez describes his grandfather telling him. I want you to do this: Write down your history, because if you dont, somebody else will. In the late 1980s, a Mexican American janitor at a factory in California came up with an idea for a new chip flavor: neon orange-dusted Cheetos with spicy sprinkles. Later on in the night they . In telling after telling, Montaez says he felt empowered to invent Flamin Hot Cheetos after watching a motivational video from Enrico, the CEO of the company, that encouraged all Frito-Lay workers to act like owners and take charge of the business.