From sun-drenched Greek cafes to bustling Korean street food markets, PepsiCo chefs are infusing fan-favorite regional dishes and the ingredients of the moment to the company’s chip brands. Bold creations including Lay’s Singapore Salted Egg Yolk in Taiwan, Doritos Golden Sriracha in the U.S. and Canada and Walkers Lea & Perrins Worcester Sauce in the U.K. showcase the chef’s culinary expertise and their ability to bring the essence of celebrated recipes and ingredients to every chip bag.
Finding inspiration
Fueling this global culinary adventure is a team of chefs who are passionate about bringing food trends to life in new and exciting ways. “It starts with a deep understanding of the people who buy our foods,” says Mitchell Dingwall, chef and Director of Global Culinary Capabilities at PepsiCo. “What are they discussing and craving? Is it joy, excitement, fun, comfort? Then we get in the kitchen and start creating.”
Flavor ideas come from food trucks, social media, cookbooks, other industries and Michelin-star restaurants. “We’ll go to cities and we’ll eat at 10 or 12 restaurants in a day. We’re tasting and trying things to get flavor inspirations to see what up-and-coming chefs are doing in the restaurants because that’s typically where things start and then trend into our business,” Mitchell says.
In today’s fast-evolving food industry, staying ahead of what consumers want requires a blend of creativity and technology. As Mitchell explains, “It’s part art, part culinary knowledge but backed with insights from data and AI tools that help us track trends from food influencers,” he says. “This way we keep our innovation focused on what people really want.”
Culinary benchmark
Each chip begins with PepsiCo’s “Culinary Gold Standard.” “The Culinary Gold Standard is what we aspire to,” Mitchell says. “How do we make this taste like a chef cooked it in their home or restaurant with no constraints?”
To craft flavors like Lay’s Wavy Korean-Style Fried Chicken and Cheetos Mexican Street Corn, teams travel abroad, immerse themselves in local food culture, sample authentic dishes and bring their take to loved recipes.
PepsiCo’s chefs cook up multiple interpretations of a single dish and the version that resonates most becomes the go-to recipe for the chip flavor. For instance, if the chip flavor is Korean fried chicken, the chefs will use these different variations to identify the nuances and precise combinations that need to be captured for a dish. “Whether it’s the crispy skin or the sweet heat profiles that the chilies bring with the soy, we work hand in hand with our innovation team to get to the perfect recipe,” Mitchell says. “We want to stretch people’s palates but also stay true to the heritage behind each flavor.”
From there, the chefs test and learn in the kitchen, refining recipes until they taste just right when paired with a Lay’s potato chip or Doritos. Mitchell says crafting the perfect flavor is like blending perfume or composing music. “Different notes hit at different places, and we want harmony — an experience no one else can replicate because of the thought we put into it.”
The “Culinary Gold Standard” is the basis of the seasonings and spices that evoke the original dishes. Through the crafting phase, they also work with PepsiCo’s extensive team of regional chefs to gut check their creations and ensure they are protecting the authenticity of the foods they’re inspired by.
And much like a large recipe book at home, PepsiCo chefs maintain a global archive of every recipe and seasoning the teams have created. “It’s nice to have access to this pantry of ideas and expertise because it gives us a jumpstart on development, and we don’t have to recreate the wheel every time we start something new,” Mitchell says. “There might be concepts that didn’t work out for various reasons, like maybe the timing wasn’t right or the naming wasn’t right. But then those become good starting points for us that we can dust off and retool when we work on something else later on.”
Culinary innovation with every crunch
By carefully studying beloved regional dishes and global flavors, honoring their origins and using this inspiration as the basis for new delicious chips, PepsiCo chefs are creating flavor-packed foods that are vibrant and personal while re-affirming our role as a trend-forward leader in culinary innovation.