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, HackerNoon and Search Engine People. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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