Kettle Foods
 |
|
| Product type | Snack foods |
|---|---|
| Owner | Snyder's-Lance (since 2016) |
| Country |
 United States
|
| Introduced | 1978 (as N.S. Khalsa Company) |
| Markets | USA, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Australia |
| Previous owners |
Lion Capital (2006-2010) Diamond Foods (2010-2016) |
| Website | www.kettlebrand.com |
Kettle Foods, Inc. is an international manufacturer of potato chips, tortilla chips, and nut butters based in Salem, Oregon, United States, with a European and Middle East headquarters in Norwich, United Kingdom. As of 2006 they were the largest natural potato chip brand in the U.S. The company, founded in 1978 by Cameron Healy has been owned by Diamond Foods since 2010 and was previously sold to Lion Capital in 2006.
The company was founded by Cameron Healy in 1978 as the N.S. Khalsa Company; it produced its first potato chips in 1982.
In 1988, following a motorcycle trip taken by the company's founder and his son, Kettle Foods established a UK branch in a converted shoe factory in Norwich; the branch moved five years later to its current UK home, a newly built factory on the outskirts of Norwich in Norfolk, England.
In 2003, the company installed the largest solar array in the Pacific Northwest with the goal of using more green energy at their Salem plant.
The company was sold in 2006 to a British private equity group, Lion Capital LLP, for $280–320 million.
In September 2007, the company opened its second US production facility in Beloit, Wisconsin, lured there by $500,000 in state economic development money. Kettle built the first manufacturing plant to be awarded gold certification in the LEED program from the United States Green Building Council.
In October 2007, campaigns were launched on Facebook calling for a boycott of Kettle Foods products following allegations that the company was attempting to dissuade workers at its Norwich factory from joining trade union Unite. The company denied the claim but acknowledged that it had taken advice from Omega Training, a UK subsidiary of the U.S. company The Burke Group, specialists in union avoidance.
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