Montañez, Richard (1958?-…) is an American businessman and motivational speaker. Montañez has been called the inventor of the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos brand snack. However, many elements of his story have been disputed by the snack’s manufacturer, Frito Lay, a division of PepsiCo, Inc.
According to one version of the story, Montañez invented his snack flavor while working as a janitor at a Frito Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California , in the mid-1980’s. Among the plant’s products were Cheetos, a crunchy corn snack coated with cheese-flavored powder. One day, a machine malfunctioned and began producing the snacks without the cheese-flavored coating. Montañez took some of the plain snacks home to experiment with them. He developed a spicy coating inspired by elotes, a traditional Mexican street food of roasted corn on the cob flavored with chili powder and other ingredients. With no formal business training, he successfully presented the idea to PepsiCo’s chief executive officer.
Officials at Frito Lay have disputed many details of Montañez’s account. According to the company, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were first developed by a team of snack food professionals at Frito Lay’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. They were developed to compete with spicy snacks sold by regional brands in cities such as Chicago and Detroit. However, the company acknowledges that Montañez made many important contributions at Frito Lay, including to the development and marketing of a line of snacks called Sabrositas—which included some Flamin’ Hot-flavored snacks.
Montañez was born in Mexico . He grew up in a migrant labor camp in Gausti, California, east of Los Angeles. He lived in a one-room apartment with his parents, grandfather, and 10 siblings. Montañez struggled to learn English, reading, and writing, and he dropped out of school at a young age. He began working for Frito Lay in 1976. He later became an executive at PepsiCo. He has written a memoir, A Boy, a Burrito, and a Cookie (2013).
