Lance Inc.

Lance, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Snack food
Founded	1913
Headquarters	Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.
Products	ToastChee Thunder potato chips Captain's Wafers Cape Cod Potato Chips
Revenue	$852.4 million USD (2008)
Number of employees	5,500
Parent	Snyder's-Lance
Subsidiaries	Tom's Snacks Cape Cod Potato Chips Brent & Sam's Cookies Vista Bakery, Inc. Stella D'oro
Website	[1]

Lance, Inc. is an American snack food company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. They manufacture snacks such asCaptain's Wafers, Cape Cod Potato Chips, Tom's Potato Chips, Archway Cookies, and Stella D'oro,

Philip Lance and Salem Van Every, Lance's son-in-law, started selling single serve snacks in 1913. Two years later, they opened the doors of the Lance Packaging Company in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1943, Philip Lance Van Every took over leadership of Lance, still a privately held company. Today, Lance, Inc., is a leader in the snack food industry and one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of snack foods in the United States, especially in the South.

On March 6, 2001, Lance Inc restated its earnings for the fourth quarter and full-year 2000 by two cents a share, citing accounting 'inaccuracies'.

Although Lance, Inc., is publicly traded, the Van Every family still maintains an active interest in the company. Lance has paid quarterly dividends to stockholders for decades. The dividend has been $0.16 per share since 2000.

On July 22, 2010, Lance announced that it would merge with Snyder's of Hanover. The resulting company, to be known as Snyder's-Lance Inc., would remain publicly traded under the LNCE symbol. Headquarters would remain in Charlotte. On December 2, Lance shareholders approved the deal that created the country's second largest snack food company. The merged company became Snyder's-Lance.

Many snack cracker products manufactured by Lance are commonly referred to as "Nabs", a genericized trademark name for Nabisco snack crackers. The term originated in 1924 when the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) introduced a snack, put in a 5-cent sealed packet called "Peanut Sandwich Packet". They soon added a second, "Sorbetto Sandwich Packet". These packets allowed salesmen to sell to soda fountains, road stands, milk bars, lunch rooms, news stands etc. Sales increased and in 1928 the company adopted and started to use the name NAB, which immediately won the approval of the public.