Poore brothers
Poore brothersPoore Brothers
Brothers Don and Jay Poore had worked on potato chip packaging equipment and thought they would strike out on their own. While servicing packaging machines in Pennsylvania, Don and Jay had met a gentleman who knew a lot about making potato chips in small kettles “One Batch at a Time” and he helped them get started. By cutting their chips a little thicker and cooking them in kettles, their product had a serious crunch that no other chip had. In 1983, they started a small chip manufacturing operation outside of Houston with a brand called Groff's of Texas. They sold their Texas business after a few years and decided to move to the Valley of the Sun. In 1986 the brothers founded Poore Brothers in Goodyear, Arizona. They started with one kettle, one delivery truck, and one store that sold their chips, Mayfair, across from the Wigwam. They didn't have a marketing budget, so they relied on sampling and word of mouth advertisement. It wasn’t long before the large grocery stores in the valley began to authorize sale of their products. It was also right around this time they had a couple of bold flavors that were real winners, Salt & Vinegar and Jalape�o. Soon, all of Arizona could buy their products. In order to serve all their Arizona customers they started a distribution company. Today Poore Brothers Distributing is the premier snack food distributor in the State of Arizona.
It was only a matter of time until the products found their way across the Arizona border into California and other states. Eventually Don and Jay licensed the brand and manufacturing process to companies in Minnesota and Tennessee. In the early 1990's, the snack food business began to change with the addition of low fat and baked snack products. So they changed too. They began cooking their product in Sunflower Oil. This oil is low in saturated fat and tastes just as good as their original product that was produced with peanut oil.
In the mid 1990s, the company was getting larger and harder to manage in the hands-on way Don and Jay liked to manage it, so in 1994, they decided to sell Poore Brothers. Since then the owners have taken the company public and opened a new state of the art manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona. Jay still works at the Goodyear plant and takes great pride in making sure the manufacturing equipment runs smooth and that the new owners make the best products possible.
Poore Brothers has since stopped the manufacture of its product in Minnesota and Tennessee. The facility in Goodyear, Arizona, is currently the only Poore Brothers facility in the world. They do all manufacturing and shipping from there. Poore Brothers currently distributes to California, Colorado, Hawaii, Ohio, Illinois, and New Mexico, with the goal of eventually reaching every...
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