Blue antique tin for world famous British Smiths potato crisps, head office and works :- Great West Road, Brentford, Middlesex, England, UK, TW8 9GU

The Smith's Snackfood Company is a British-Australian snack food brand owned by the American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation PepsiCo. It is best known for its brand of potato crisps. The company was founded by Frank Smith and Jim Viney in the United Kingdom in 1920 as Smiths Potato Crisps Ltd, originally packaging a twist of salt with its crisps in greaseproof paper bags which were sold around London Smith's Potato Crisps was formed by Frank Smith and Jim Viney in the United Kingdom after World War I. Smith had been a manager for a Smithfield wholesale grocery business which sold potato crisps from 1913. Deciding to make his own, Smith converted garages in Cricklewood, London into a crisp factory, selling to local businesses. By 1920 he had 12 full-time employees. Smith conceived the idea of selling unseasoned potato crisps with a small blue sachet of salt that could be sprinkled over them. In 1927, after buying Jim Viney's share of the business, the company expanded into a factory in Brentford, London. In 1929, Smiths had seven factories in the UK and the following year it was incorporated as a private limited company. By 1934, 200 million packets of crisps were sold in Britain each year, 95 percent of which were manufactured by Smith's In 1966, Smith's was purchased by the American food producer, General Mills. In 1988, RJR Nabisco was purchased in a leverage buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, and to reduce debt several business were sold to French conglomerate BSN, who quickly sold on Smith's and Walkers to PepsiCo in 1989. At the time Walkers had a third of the crisp market in the United Kingdom, while Smith's had a third of the extruded snacks market, making them the market leader. Subsequently, Pepsico withdrew the brand, in favour of British brand Walkers, which was heavily marketed by PepsiCo in a campaign using former England international footballer turned television presenter Gary Lineker.