Yes: PepsiCo owns Lay’s. Lay’s is a Frito-Lay brand, and PepsiCo was founded in 1965 when Pepsi-Cola merged with Frito-Lay, led by Herman W. Lay. Today Lay’s sits in PepsiCo Foods North America, which had $27,528 million of net revenue and $6,173 million of segment operating profit in fiscal 2025 (year ended 27 December 2025). PepsiCo itself is public; its 2026 proxy lists Vanguard (10.1%) and BlackRock (8.2%) as holders above 5%.
PepsiCo's 10-K names Lay's first in its list of brands and places it in PepsiCo Foods North America (PFNA), the segment for all convenient foods in the United States and Canada.
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The 1965 merger
PepsiCo's shareholder services page says PepsiCo was founded in 1965 by Donald M. Kendall of Pepsi-Cola and Herman W. Lay of Frito-Lay through the merger of the two companies.
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Who owns PepsiCo
PepsiCo is listed on Nasdaq and widely held. The 2026 proxy names The Vanguard Group (137,677,940 shares, 10.1%) and BlackRock (111,846,376 shares, 8.2%) as the holders it knows above 5%; both stakes come from filings dated 2025 and 2023.
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What the snack unit earns
PFNA had net revenue of $27,528 million and segment operating profit of $6,173 million in fiscal 2025. The North American drinks segment, PBNA, had more revenue ($28,197 million) but $1,089 million of operating profit after impairment charges.
What changed in 2025-26
Reformulating Lay's
PepsiCo’s 10-K for fiscal 2025 describes reducing added sugar, sodium and saturated fat in core brands like Lay’s and Gatorade, and work to remove artificial colours and flavours from Lay’s, Cheetos and Doritos.
Buying into better-for-you brands
In 2025 PepsiCo paid $1.95 billion net for poppi and $1.2 billion for Garza Food Ventures (Siete), according to the cash-flow discussion in its 10-K, adding brands aimed at shoppers who want simpler ingredients.
Profit pressure in snacks
PFNA segment operating profit fell from $6,619 million in fiscal 2024 to $6,173 million in fiscal 2025 while net revenue was roughly flat ($27,431 million to $27,528 million), per the 10-K segment tables.
AI shopping agents named as a risk
PepsiCo’s 10-K lists artificial intelligence shopping agents that autonomously select products that may not be ours, alongside GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, among changes in consumer behaviour that could hurt demand.
Segment operating profit$11,498 million operating profit
What it means for you
Look for Lay's results inside PFNA in PepsiCo's quarterly filings; PepsiCo does not report Lay's sales on their own.
Compare PFNA margins with PBNA's: in fiscal 2025 the snack segment earned far more profit on less revenue.
Read every shareholder stake with its date; PepsiCo's proxy uses filings with 2023 and 2025 holdings.
If you supply or compete with Frito-Lay, study its direct-store-delivery model, which delivers to stores and merchandises the shelf.
Watch the 10-K risk list: weight-loss drugs and AI shopping agents are now named threats to snack demand.
The Business Engineer lens
Lay’s is the strongest brand in PepsiCo’s most profitable segment, and its advantage is physical: a delivery network that puts chips on the shelf every week. AI shopping agents that pick products on price or nutrition attack exactly that shelf habit, which is why PepsiCo now names them as a risk.
Yes. Lay's is a Frito-Lay brand owned by PepsiCo, which was formed in 1965 by the merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay.
Who makes Lay's chips?
Frito-Lay, reported inside PepsiCo Foods North America in the US and Canada; outside North America Lay's is sold through PepsiCo's international segments.
How much money does Lay's make?
PepsiCo does not disclose Lay's sales. The segment that includes it, PepsiCo Foods North America, had $27,528 million of net revenue in fiscal 2025.
Who owns PepsiCo?
Public shareholders. The 2026 proxy names Vanguard (10.1%) and BlackRock (8.2%) as the holders the company knows to own more than 5%.
The complete explainer, cleaned up and reformatted for mobile.
In short
Yes. Lay’s is a Frito-Laybrand, and Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola in 1965 to form PepsiCo. Today Lay’s sits in PepsiCo Foods North America, which made $27.5 billion of revenue and $6.2 billion of segment operating profit in 2025. PepsiCo does not report Lay’s sales separately.
Correction (10 Oct 2026): an earlier version of this page included a ‘2026: What Changed’ section and a ‘Key Metrics’ box with figures we could not find in PepsiCo’s filings, plus undated shareholder data. They have been removed; figures now come from PepsiCo’s 2025 10-K and 2026 proxy.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q, prospectus and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number; outside estimates appear only labelled, with their source and date. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Yes. Lay’s belongs to PepsiCo through Frito-Lay. The chips brand started with Herman Lay in the 1930s; Lay’s company merged with Frito in 1961 to form Frito-Lay, and in 1965 Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola to create PepsiCo (PepsiCo shareholder services). Lay’s has been a PepsiCo brand ever since, and PepsiCo’s 10-K lists it first among its brands.
In North America, Lay’s is reported inside PepsiCo Foods North America, the segment that combines Frito-Lay and Quaker. Outside North America it is sold through PepsiCo’s international segments, in some markets under other names.
Who owns PepsiCo?
PepsiCo is public and widely held: Vanguard (10.1%) and BlackRock (8.2%) are the only holders above 5% (2026 proxy). See who owns PepsiCo.
Lay’s is the flagship of PepsiCo’s most profitable business. In 2025, PepsiCo Foods North America earned $6.2 billion of segment operating profit on $27.5 billion of sales, a 22% margin, while the North American drinks business earned $1.1 billion on slightly more revenue. The reason is structural: Frito-Lay owns its own direct-store-delivery network, and leading snack brands command shelf space and pricing that competitors struggle to match.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
