Story at a glance:
- Frito-Lay has denied the urban legend that Richard Montañez created the Flamin’ Hot brand.
- Montañez has made a career out of innovation.
- He will have a book and a movie based on his supposed invention.
Frito-Lay, the popular snack makers behind Cheetos, say there is no record of entrepreneur Richard Montañez being credited with inventing Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
The Los Angeles Times published a story that might have exposed the urban legend; according to the paper Montañez did not create Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
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“None of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market,” Frito-Lay wrote in a statement to The Times, in response to questions about an internal investigation whose existence has not been previously disclosed. “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.”
Montañez started taking credit for inventing Flamin’ Hots in the late 2000s,The Times reported, when the product was nearly 20 years old at that time.
With many of the remaining people behind the brand retired, no one felt the need to fact check Montañez, enabling a feel-good story to fester regardless if it was true or false.
Lynne Greenfeld is the supposed Flamin’ Hot creator, and she was a junior employee of the company.
After seeing that Montañez received credit for her work, Greenfeld contacted Frito-Lay in 2018, triggering a company investigation.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t celebrate Richard,” the statement continued, “but the facts do not support the urban legend.”
The creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has been a widely speculated topic and a source of inspiration for some, Rare reported.
In the version of the story that says Montañez was its inventor, he was a janitor at Frito-Lay’s factory in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., a fact that is true, reports Rare.
The story continues that when an assembly line machine broke and patches of plain-flavored Cheetos were produced, Montañez claims he took them home and experimented with them. He used Mexican flavors like grilled sweet corn and spices like chili powder, similar to what Hispanic vendors used.
Confident in his innovation, Montañez said he pitched it to the former Frito-Lay exec Al Carey and the then-PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, of which Pepsi is the parent company of Frito-Lay.
Accoridng to Montañez, they liked his supposed invention, and he was invited to make a presentation to the board. It was also successful.
The product was eventually launched nationally and Montañez went from Frito-Lay janitor to executive, at least that is what Montañez recalls. (It’s true, according to Rare, that he was eventually made the vice president of multicultural sales & community promotions.)
According to Rare, Enrico was not yet CEO of PepsiCo until after the line of chips was released. Carey said he remembered Montañez being involved with the line.
Montañez has been a motivational speaker and guest host at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC where he asks for $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.
His second memoir under an imprint of Penguin Random House, “Flamin’ Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man’s Rise from Janitor to Top Executive,” is out in June.
His story is also going to be adopted into a movie directed by Eva Longoria called Flamin’ Hot, to be released by Searchlight Pictures.
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