Kettle Foods

Kettle Foods 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 are 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.

History

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 a newly built factory on the outskirts of Norwich, its current UK home.

In 2003, the company installed the largest solar array in the Pacific Northwest to use more green energy at their Salem plant. 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.