The Memo: Concocting Cool Ranch
Plus: The most affordable city in America.
Hello, Memo readers!
Suggested Reading
Sometimes lightning strikes in the salad dressing aisle.
Related Content
Former Yum Brands CEO David Novak — inventor of the Cool Ranch Dorito — said the beloved chip flavor got its start during a grocery trip to a Texas supermarket in 1984. He and other executives needed to develop new products that could help the struggling Frito Lay business. At the time, their biggest moneymaker was Doritos.
“I took my team, and I said, ‘We’re just going to go up and down the grocery aisle and see what seems to be growing, or the big trends may be,’” Novak said.
At one point, they got to salad dressings, Novak recalls, where they noticed a wall of ranch dressing. Ranch was the fastest growing flavor of salad dressing at the time, giving Novak the idea to combine two popular items to make one hit product.
“It was produced by pairing things that aren’t obviously related,” Novak told Quartz in an interview. Read what else Novak had to say about innovation — including takeaways from one of his failed inventions: Crystal Pepsi.
Pop quiz: The most affordable city in America
Which U.S. city is the most affordable to live in right now?
A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Find the correct answer here or at the bottom of this email — and also find out which cities have become “impossibly unaffordable.”
You got the Memo
Send questions, comments, and Cool Ranch Doritos to [email protected]. This edition of The Memo was written by Francisco Velasquez and Morgan Haefner.
The answer to the pop quiz is A., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.