Since the early-1990s, PepsiCo has sold $1B+ of Doritos a year. Why is the chip so addictive? From the ingredients to cooking method to texture, its engineered to pull all the psychological levers to make you crave the snack. Here’s a breakdown 🧵
Doritos are a good way to understand junk food. As noted by a Colorado U study on food addiction, natural ingredients are often processed to be addictive: ◻️Grapes to wine ◻️Coca leaves to cocaine ◻️Poppy seeds to heroin It's a useful framework to think about "corn to Doritos".
A common junk food trait is the combination of fat and sugar. In nature, these compounds are rarely found combined. There are a myriad of ways to mix them in standard cooking but the snack industry turned the combo of sugar and fat into a science. Here are 6 ways Doritos do it:
#1 - Ideal fat content Speaking of fat and sugar, Doritos have nearly a perfectly balanced mix. The top 2 ingredients are corn (carb) and vegetable oils (fat). The calories in a Doritos chip is split almost exactly 50/50 between carb and fat (each bag has 3 ears of corn).
#2 - Cooking method Humans have developed a craving for compounds that come out of the cooking process. Doritos satisfies this craving by hitting you with multiple levels of cooking: ◻️the corn kernels are cooked ◻️corn mashed into paste ◻️corn chip toasted + deep fried
#3 - Seasoning A Doritos chip is dusted w/ a long list of flavour enhancers: ◻️MSG ◻️Sugar, Salt ◻️disodium inosinate / guanylate ◻️garlic/pepper/tomato/onion powder This mix is called “non-specific aroma”. No flavor is dominant enough to cause satiety (feeling full).
#4 - So much cheese Doritos are loaded w/ real cheese: romano, cheddar and parmesan (it uses milk from 10k cows a year). When digested, cheese releases a compound called casomorphim which attaches to the same brain receptors as heroin. This leads to a satisfying dopamine hit.
#5 - Contrasting texture A Doritos bite starts with a crunch but quickly dissolves in your mouth. This is a phenomenon known as “vanishing caloric density”. The feeing of food “vanishingly in your mouth signals to the brain that you “need” more.
#6 - The finale After destroying a bag of Doritos, you’re left with a layer of delicious goodness on your fingers. Let’s be real, people are def licking that flavour. And it's 5x more concentrated than on a chip. TLDR: A Doritos bag ends w/ a bang and leaves us wanting more.
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Huy Fong's Sriracha hit revenue of $150m+ a year...with no sales team, no trademark and $0 in ad spend.
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) June 27, 2021
Its creator is Vietnamese-American David Tran, making the sauce's success a tale of immigrant hustle and a product that literally sells itself.
Here's the story🧵 pic.twitter.com/siEoK6UeLs
PS. I also write a weekly newsletter on trending tech, business and internet topics (sprinkled with lots of memes):
Sources Irish Times: BI: Sure Dividend: Uni Study: YouTube / Food TV:
That’s a lifetime of flavour right there
Two notes on Doritos: ◻️Typo in 2nd tweet (“poppy seed” was supposed to be “opium poppy”). ◻️Received this DM on Doritos and cheese
Some more ways that Doritos keeps you coming back 🔗
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