Original subtitles

- What better place to smarten up on snacks

than right here at Wise, in Berwick, Pennsylvania.

(upbeat music)

Their 600,000 square foot facility

delivers nearly every size, shape, and style of salty snack

that you can imagine, and they have big plans

to create even more.

With the salty snack industry ballooning

into a $28 billion business, we've turned snacking

into a science, or maybe an art form.

Today, we are going to dive into some of the salty snacks

that Americans love the most, like potato chips

and tortilla chips, jerky, cheesy snacks,

popcorn and pretzels.

(upbeat music)

Then we'll also go behind the scenes

at the first pretzel company in America,

where we'll see the secrets of pretzel making.

- The barley malt was kind of a secret ingredient,

for him at the time.

It gave it the flavor that nobody else had.

- [Adam] And we'll not only learn all there is to know

about the invention of potato chips,

but also the surprising origin story

of the Flamin' Hot Cheeto.

Plus, with every flavor imaginable,

how do potato chip companies

still innovate new flavors each year?

Watch as I get exclusive access

to try unreleased Cheez Doodles.

Oh, boy.

Well, it's time for you to take a break, treat yo'self,

because this is "Modern Marvels: Snack Food,"

and hopefully, he'll have a few free examples.

(upbeat music)

(potatoes thumping)

- [Adam] Oh my Gosh!

It smells amazing in here, and as a Wise lover,

seeing all these chips, I just want a giant bowl of dip.

I'm going to get a firsthand look at the process

of how Wise takes potatoes and turns them

into the golden goodness we know as potato chips.

Wise has 300 different snack products.

Combine these with others like Frito-Lay, Utz,

Nabisco, Pringles, the list goes on,

you can imagine how serious Americans are about snacking.

Wise is a big player in the local community, as well.

Some employees have worked here

for three, four, even five decades.

Today, I'm going to meet one of those loyal,

longtime employees, Operation Manager Terry Boyer,

who has been here for 45 years,

and Terry's dad worked here for a half century.

Terry is gonna show me the secrets of how they make, pack,

and ship millions of salty snacks every single month.

Potato chips alone, you guys are selling

23 million bags per year, is that right?

- Per month.

Per month.

Between our potato chips and our corn-based snacks,

we sell almost a half a billion bags a year.

- [Adam] In 1921, Earl Wise brought home some extra potatoes

from his family's delicatessen and started making

potato chips by hand, in a copper kettle.

A year later, he bought his own truck to deliver

the potato chips, and within four years

of that first batch of chips,

Earl Wise built his first factory on the grounds

where the current plant is located.

And today, the company Earl Wise founded 100 years ago,

now ships its snacks to all 50 states,

and 13 different countries, all across the globe.

- To celebrate our 100th anniversary,

we're coming out with some different flavors.

I have two here on the table for you,

if you would like to try them?

- [Adam] These are brand new?

- Yep.

- I believe that I'm probably the first outsider

to try them.

Terry is challenging me to identify these flavors,

and am I up for this challenge.

Mmmm.

I get a bit of heat, a bit of tanginess.

It's reminiscent of the classic barbecue chip,

but there's a little bit more to it.

Oh man.

I've never had anything like it.

It's sweet and heat.

That is awesome. (upbeat music)

These mad-flavor scientists are geniuses.

- [Terry] Okay.

- Mmm.

This one's a little more difficult.

Delicious.

I give up, you stumped me, what is it?

- This is--

- [Adam] Hickory barbecue. - [Terry] Hickory barbecue.

Peach Habanero is for more for the millennial consumer.

This is our traditional consumer.

You can't get any more traditional

than a barbecue flavored potato chip,

but we added some zesty spices to it.

- Will you show me how we make these?

- Yep, let's continue through the factory,

and we'll start at the beginning and show you

how the process and how the product is made.

- [Adam] After you.

(upbeat music)

- Here, Adam, is where step one of the process is.

- [Adam] This glorious process of making potato chips

starts with getting the potatoes into the building.

- [Terry] We'll get between 12 and 15 trailer loads

of a potatoes a day, 50,000 pounds per trailer.

We'll literally be digging potatoes in the morning

and frying them and putting them in the bags at night.

- That's how fresh they are?

So right here in this truck,

that's 50,000 pounds of potatoes?

- [Terry] That's correct.

- What does that translate to in terms of potato chips?

- In finished product, 80% of that weight of those potatoes

is water, so we're only getting 20% solid,

so that 50,000 pounds will equate to about 12,000 pounds

of finished chips.

- [Adam] Okay, so what do we do first?

- [Terry] I'll let you unload this trailer.

- [Adam] That's cool. - [Terry] So you can

hit the two buttons here.

- [Adam] All right, here we go.

(upbeat music)

That's so cool.

If I wasn't seeing this,

I'm not sure I's believe what's happened.

When I pushed those buttons, I had no idea

that the entire truck was getting hoisted up into the sky,

to shake potatoes out of the back.

There's the whole truck.

I'm just shaking it out.

This is so cool.

This little, tiny button is taking an entire trailer

and just kept tipping it like a box of cereal.

So all these will get fried, by the end of the day?

- [Terry] By the end of the day, these will all be fried.

- [Adam] That's nuts.

The potato is everywhere.

These starchy spuds are actually the fourth largest crop

in the world, behind rice, wheat, and corn.

In the 16th century, Spanish Conquistadors

brought potatoes to Europe from Peru,

but for 200 years, nobody would eat them.

People actually thought they were poisonous

or only worthy to feed livestock.

That is until a French pharmacist

named Antoine Parmentier

saw the potato as something that could feed a nation.

And just like we were today,

he turned to the ultimate influencer of public opinion

- He got King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

to wear potato flowers on their clothes,

as a way of enticing people to see potatoes in a new way.

- [Adam] And starting with that royal endorsement,

potatoes soon became one of the top food sources for Europe,

then America, and then the rest of the world.

There are a few different accounts of how the potato

went from feeding European nations

to becoming the almighty potato chip,

but for one of the most common stories,

we have to fast forward to Saratoga Springs, New York,

in the year 1853.

During a crazy dinner rush, at a restaurant called

Moon's Lake House, a picky customer sent his French fries

back to the kitchen, saying the potatoes were cut too thick.

The chef, a part African-American

part Native American man

named George Crum, was less than pleased,

and his reaction made history.

- George Crum decided to shave them

as thin as he could get, fried them,

and sort of turn them into potato chips.

- [Adam] The legend continues

The customer loved the crispy snacks,

and he wasn't the only one.

These new Saratoga chips became an instant hit

in Saratoga Springs and spread throughout the country.

Between the 1920's and 1930's,

thanks to innovations like the automatic potato peeler

and continuous fryer, companies like Wise, Lays,

and Utz were born.

Now, America consumes 1.5 billion pounds

of potato chips every year.

So where do the potatoes travel?

- [Terry] The potatoes you've unloaded outside

are then transferred by conveyors.

(potatoes thumping)

They're traveling on an overhead belt, right above us,

and then diverted right into this bin here.

- [Adam] So this is full of those potatoes?

- [Terry] Of those potatoes,

Each one of these bins that are in here will hold

a whole truck, which is the 50,000 pounds of potatoes.

This is where they'll get a wash,

before they go into the peeling area.

- [Adam] So this water is doing two jobs in one.

Not only is it cleaning the potatoes,

it's transporting them to the next stop in the process.

So we have trucks, to this conveyor system hopper,

to being washed, pipes, to peeling?

- To peeling.

- All right, let's go peel them.

After you.

- In this area here is where we'll do

the peeling of the potatoes, before the frying.

- [Adam] Okay.

After they're cleaned, the potatoes ride up the belt

and get dumped into these big hoppers.

- [Terry] The potatoes come in the tube, into a hopper here.

From that hopper, they're fed into a peeling mechanism,

and this is what's inside those peeling drums,

where we actually peel the potatoes.

This apparatus is inside both of those small drums.

- [Adam] Does it get like full all the way to the brim?

- No, it won't be full all the way to the top.

About 80 pounds of potatoes will be in the drum,

for each of the batches.

- What does that translate to in terms of bags?

- It would give you 40 bags of finished potato chips.

- [Adam] It feels like sandpaper inside.

- That's exactly what it is.

It's 24-grit sandpaper.

Inside there, this bottom piece spins,

as these potatoes go around,

- [Adam] Uh-huh (affirmative).

- [Terry] you can see what's happening.

- [Adam] Oh, and because they've gone through the flume,

it's wet-- - [Terry] It's wet--

- [Adam] And it's easier to peel.

- [Terry] And helps remove this skin.

- [Adam] So as the potatoes rotate around inside the drum,

they rub against the abrasive bottom and sides,

and the peels get sanded away.

It's just the slightest bit of pressure,

because it's already moist.

I was actually wondering, if it wouldn't be too weird,

if I could try and then see if I could see the flavor

in the final chip.

Is that cool? - Sure.

- All right.

- [Adam] Last year salty snacks like chips, jerky, pretzels,

and popcorn reported more than $19 billion in sales,

in the U.S. alone.

Here at the Wise factory, we're following the process,

as potatoes become potato chips, and I'm curious

how a slice of one of these spuds tastes,

in its raw form compared to the eventual chip.

They're really delicious.

Tastes like a green bean but like starchy, a little sweet.

This slices like an apple.

It actually has a lot of body to it.

So when you make this into a chip, it's gonna have

a lot of flavor because more starch, more sugar,

and it's gonna preserve that earthiness.

Really, really good.

Potato chips are an undeniable classic,

but there's another salty predecessor that's been

in the pantheon of snacks, for more than 1400 years.

The legend says that pretzels were born in Northern Italy,

in the year 610, a.d., and today they are

a more than $1.3 billion global industry.

The average American eats two pounds of pretzels each year,

but in Pennsylvania,

they eat six times as many pretzels as the rest of us.

So we're going to Julius Sturgis,

in Lititz, Pennsylvania,

Family owned and operated,

this historical company established early recipes

and pretzel-making methods that they still employ today.

- Julius, as a 15 year old, began an apprenticeship

at a local bakery, just down the street.

Most bakers, they would leave bits of pieces of dough

in the cooling ovens overnight.

- [Adam] Julius had the idea to twist these pieces

of leftover dough into a pretzel shape

and sell them on the side.

He saved his money for 11 years

and opened up his own bakery.

- [Kurt] We are stepping back into history,

over 150 years old.

- [Adam] The original ovens built by Julius remain on site.

Their soft pretzels are made fresh daily

and twisted by hand, using the original recipe, from 1861.

- I use water, yeast,

and I have a little bit of barley malt in there.

The barley malt is kind of a secret ingredient.

It gave it the flavor that nobody else had.

Right now, we're working with a stand-up mixture.

Julius Sturgis didn't use that when he made pretzels here.

He used a barrel, a wooden paddle, and worked it by hand,

and a lot more dough than what is in here, at that time.

Okay, we'll check this out.

- [Adam] According to the legend, pretzels were created

more than 1400 years ago, when an Italian monk

used a piece of twisted bread

to reward his students, for learning of their prayers.

It's said that the crossed pattern

represents the folded arms of the praying children,

and the three holes represent the Holy Trinity,

the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

At the historic shop where Julius Sturgis operated,

they continue his legacy,

baking pretzels just the way he did.

But at the Julius Sturgis plant, about 30 miles away,

they make between one to five million hard pretzels

every single day.

(upbeat music)

Back at Wise, we're jumping back into the process

of potato chip production.

We've seen them delivered, washed, and peeled.

Now Terry is gonna show us how they

get to look like potato chips.

Just up a few steps is where the potatoes get sliced

into that classic potato chip shape.

You guys gotta see this. (potatoes thumping)

Potatoes here,

chips here,

that's how fast that process happens.

Terry's removed the blades from the huge slicers

to show me how they work.

Whoa, show me one second.

Can you see how thin that is?

- Precision 60 thousandths of an inch is what these are sliced,

and they'll be within two to three thousandths,

when they're sliced.

- [Adam] That thin.

Oh my gosh, I never thought of potato chip making

as this precise science.

It's pretty incredible.

How many blades are in each?

- There are eight blades in each of the heads,

and those blades are changed every two hours of production.

- Because they get dull?

- [Terry] They will get dull.

The best thing for quality chips is to have

the sharpest blade you can, to get that precision cut.

This actually is 300 pound batches--

- [Adam] What? - that we will do.

- Turning 300 pounds of these

into 300 pounds of these takes how long?

- 30 to 40 seconds.

With two of these heads, the 300 pounds

will be sliced into the 60 thousandths inch slices.

- [Adam] Wait, can I try one?

- [Terry] Uh-huh (affirmative).

- [Adam] That way, right?

- [Terry] Yep. Towards me.

- Yep. Ready?

And now I'm barely using any force.

If I just do this,

time and time again I'm gonna keep getting

the most exact slice.

- So to make our ridge-style chip--

- No way.

- The cutter is actually different.

This blade right here.

- [Adam] Yeah.

- Slide that just like we did the other one.

- Come on.

(upbeat music)

After they've come out of the slicer, the potato slices

travel along a belt, to this area, where they'll be fried.

These are the fryers?

- [Terry] These are the fryers.

You can see a batch going right into the fryer now.

- Oh, I see it.

Can we go check that out?

- Yes, if you want to, walk down, Geno Caporaletti's there.

He'll be glad to show you how this process works.

- All right. Thank you.

Let's go get Geno.

One of the world's favorite snacks

comes in tasty the little triangles,

Doritos, and wouldn't, you know it?

These chips that make so many people happy

come from the happiest place on earth.

- 1955 Disneyland had just opened in Anaheim, California,

and a few years later, the Frito-Lay Company

opened their restaurant Casa de Fritos on the grounds.

- [Adam] One day a delivery person from their tortilleria

noticed the kitchen staff at Casa de Fritos

discarding all their stale tortillas.

He suggested they cut them up, fry them, and season them,

and you can probably guess what happened next.

- People loved it.

They enjoyed these, doraditos, which is what they call them,

and that translates to little golden things, in Spanish.

The marketing execs at Frito-Lay also started hearing about

what was happening in their restaurant,

and the name will eventually shrink down to Doritos

and they're a huge success.

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] When Doritos launched in 1966,

they were almost like plain tortilla chips.

Two years later, they gave them a taco flavor.

The original flavor of nacho cheese didn't debut until 1974.

(dramatic music)

Back at Wise, I'm heading to an essential part

of the chip making process. (laughing) Oh, baby.

The frying.

I didn't realize it would look like a swimming pool.

Look at this.

I can't tell you how great it smells in here.

These gigantic fryers magically turn potato slices

into potato chips,

and fry manager Geno is gonna show me how they do it.

So tell me a little bit about the fryers.

- [Geno] These are batch fryers.

We run around 500 pounds an hour, on each one of these.

- [Adam] As someone who's actually

fried my own potato chips at home,

I can tell you this,

the way they do it here at Wise is truly amazing.

A huge batch of potato slices swims in this

hot tub of cholesterol free sunflower seed oil

for about nine minutes, and when they come out,

they've magically transformed from potato slices

into crispy potato chips.

By constantly churning them up, they don't stick,

they don't sink, and you get those beautiful folds

that make them all crunchy.

Remember, Terry said that a potato is largely water,

so we're cooking a lot of that out.

So there's a lot of steam, but not a lot of grease,

which is really amazing.

I'm resisting the urge to reach in very, very, very hard.

(upbeat music)

Besides chips and Cheez Doodles,

there's another salty snack we all love.

It started as a sustainable food source

hundreds of years ago,

and today it's nearly a $4 billion global industry.

I'm talking about jerky.

Jack Link's is by far

the largest jerky brand in the world,

with more than a billion dollars in annual sales.

We're heading to New Glarus, Wisconsin, where Steve Jobe,

the Jack Link's plant manager, is going to walk us through

how they make their iconic meat sticks.

They start the process by taking truckloads of raw meat

and grinding it into a form that they can work with.

Each year, this plant goes through about 17 million

pounds of beef that's ground up and run through this

3000 pound mixer, in order to create a homogenous meat blend

called an emulsion.

- They're combined with spices, water, salt,

and other ingredients to create the emulsions

that will eventually go into the kitchen

and be put in the casing.

- [Adam] Then that emulsion is pressed through

a 1/8th of an inch hole plate,

to stuff it into a collagen casing.

These meat sticks get loaded onto these racks

they call trucks.

They will load up to 180 of these trucks a day.

That is a lot of meat sticks.

Next step is to load them into their gigantic ovens

to be smoked.

- Most of these ovens will hold 14 trucks, so they're large.

You could park a couple cars in them, if you wanted to.

Then smoke anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours.

- [Adam] You might like the modern chili lime

or sriracha flavored jerky as a road trip snack,

but jerky has a long history in America.

- Jerky comes from the Conquistadors

in Central America,

- One in three forms a jerky came out of the Incan Empire.

The word jerky comes from the word charki.

- As European settlers adopted the method of

smoking and drying meat, the word charki became jerky,

and to many early Americans, jerky wasn't just a snack.

- These days we really think of jerky as something

that you might just have on a whim,

but really in early America, it was a matter of survival.

- [Adam] Jerky has come a long way,

from sustaining early Americans through the winter,

to the modern day traveler through a road trip.

Clearly, jerky is here to stay.

(upbeat music)

Jack Link's meat sticks come out of the smoker cooked,

and then they head over to be cut into 15 inch sticks,

20 at a time.

Then they're vacuum sealed and boxed up by hand,

and they're ready to be sent out into the world.

Back at the Wise factory, Terry is showing me

another side of their epics snack lineup.

Whoa.

Where have taken me?

- [Terry] This is where we're making our famous onion rings.

- [Adam] Man cannot snack on potato chips alone.

Sometimes you need to shake it up with something crunchy,

something savory, something oniony.

In 1969, Wise started making their amazing onion rings,

and they have become one of the most popular snacks

that Wise produces.

Instead of slices of onion that are dipped in batter

and then deep fried, like you'd get at a restaurant,

these onion rings snacks start as an O-shaped pellet

made out of corn, seasoned with onion flavor.

Here at Wise, they make the pellets and season them,

before they even get to the fryer.

Where is the oil, down that way?

- Inside that fryer.

- [Adam] The smell of oniony goodness in here is incredible.

These little onion ring pellets take a quick dip

in this hot oil and magically transform,

puffing up into the onion rings we know in love.

Whoa.

That's amazing.

- Would you like to try to finished product?

- Hell yeah.

Who am I kidding.

(dramatic music)

I mean...

Light, crispy.

It's more savory than just onion.

That's the misconception.

I bet a lot of people think just onion.

You're welcome America.

I eat deliciousness for you.

- [Adam] Americans eat almost 2 billion pounds

of potato chips each year.

That equals about six pounds of potato chips per person,

and one of the most famous purveyors of potato chips

is the legendary Wise snacks,

where Terry is taking us to the next step

in the potato chips process.

So what is this?

- Adam, this is our opti-sort machine.

It's an optical picker that actually picks any of the

defect chips out, that has a brown spot or a black spot.

- [Adam] Wait, how does it separate all those chips?

- It has a high speed camera inside here.

The belt is running at 600 feet per minute,

and the camera will take a picture of every individual chip

as it passes underneath.

Let me show you what that camera is seeing.

That's the chips on the belt.

- And so I'm looking here, black, brown, green, and other.

- The black, brown, and green

are the chips that would pick out.

- [Adam] And it's looking for the colors

black, brown, or green?

- [Terry] Correct.

- [Adam] The way it works is the camera takes a picture

of every single chip that shoots past on the belt.

If it sees a black, brown, or green chip,

it signals one of 128 air jets that will blow

that individual chip out of the stream, into a reject pile.

- [Terry] The good ones will go over.

The bad ones will get separated.

- [Adam] So after sorting, where do we head?

- [Terry] Then they go to packaging,

where they get salted and seasoning.

Follow me. I'll take you there.

- You got it.

Besides potato chips, there's another crunchy salty snack

that Americans eat tons of, literally.

Popcorn.

Americans eat 17 billion quarts of popcorn a year.

That's enough to fill the Great Pyramid of Giza seven times.

Can you even imagine going to a movie theater

without smelling that wonderful smell of popcorn?

- One of the biggest draws of popcorn was how cheap it was.

For just for a few cents, you could have

enough of a meal to last you for an hour of viewing.

Movie theaters realized that people were

And as it turned out, popcorn is so cheap per pound

that the movie theater owners could actually make more money

off the popcorn they would sell their patrons

than off the tickets to their movies.

So theaters really fully embraced popcorn,

with Gerard W. Dickson in 1938, when he actually installed

popcorn poppers in the front of his movie theater,

and so that meant that when patrons came in,

they were sort of accosted by the smell of hot oil

and butter that made them want to have to get popcorn,

before they went in to watch the movie.

* Let's all go to the lobby

* Let's all go to the lobby

* Let's all go to the lobby

* To get ourselves a treat

- [Edward] So there was a period when popcorn sales

started to decrease, and this was in the 1970's and 1980's,

when viewership went from being sort of a communal,

going to the movie theaters affair,

to staying at home and watching on TV.

- [Adam] By the 1980's, two inventions went mainstream

into every house in America and kept popcorn

as part of the movie watching experience.

- By the 1980's, America's love affair

with mass marketed popular culture is at an all time high.

We even have VCRs.

Films you could see at the movie theater,

you could then see six feet in front of you,

on a television.

And of course, microwave popcorn.

Makes all the sense in the world.

- [Adam] In the 1940's, a Raytheon scientist

was experimenting with a magnetron, when he felt

the candy bar in his pocket melt, by the microwaves.

He got the idea to expose popcorn to the microwaves,

and boom, it immediately popped all over the lab,

and the rest is history.

Popping popcorn was even included in the original patent

for the microwave oven.

Since then manufacturers continue to make new flavors

and products, to keep the popcorn industry popping.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] Back at Wise,

Terry is showing me how they make popcorn,

as well as another finger-licking favorite snack.

Do you just have like the biggest popcorn popper

in the world?

- We actually have two popcorn poppers

that will go through that popcorn.

This is a cooling area, before this product

is actually packaged, so it's coming down to conveyors

being fed into the different conveyors

that will weigh that product, then package it.

And that's our famous white cheddar popcorn.

- [Adam] Now we're looking at two cheese-flavored products.

So I obviously recognize these.

Those are the classic Cheez Doodles.

- [Terry] Cheez Doodles.

- [Adam] I've discovered the Cheez Doodle river.

I've heard fables of this.

Can I try these?

- You sure can.

- [Adam] It's like we're panning for gold.

You can imagine they can't just let anyone reach in

and scoop these pure, perfect, still warm Cheez Doodles

fresh out of the Cheez Doodle River.

These are the most sought after snack

at every birthday party growing up.

It's better than I remember it.

It actually reminds me of sharp cheddar cheese spread,

like it's a strong cheddar note

and a little bit of yellow American.

- [Terry] Try that.

- Oh hell yeah.

The popcorn is light, fluffy,

top notch.

Who develops the cheese flavorings?

- [Terry] We will introduce you to Mike, our flavor master,

in a little bit.

- Wait, they're called the flavor masters?

- He is our flavor master.

- That's the coolest damn title I've ever heard.

In today's snacking industry, flavor is a big business,

and there is a hot new flavor trend sweeping through

all brands of snack foods all over the world,

and it all began with a janitor at the Frito-Lay company.

- Richard Montanez was the son of Mexican immigrants,

and in 1976, he was 18 years old, and he had just been hired

at the Frito-Lay plant, in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

- [Adam] After years of working as a janitor

at the Frito-Lay factory, Richard noticed

that a flavoring machine on the Cheeto line had broken down,

leaving a pile of unflavored Cheetos.

The proverbial light bulb went off, and he decided

to take some of the plain Cheetos home to experiment.

- Richard Montanez was inspired by

the flavors that he grew up eating,

particularly of the Mexican street corn,

or the Mexican Elote, with flavors of chili powder,

and cheese, and of course, lots of lime.

- [Adam] When he got a flavor he was proud of,

Richard mustered up the courage to call the CEO

of the company and pitched his new spicy flavor of Cheeto.

What happened next changed his life

and the world of snacking forever.

The head of Frito-Lay invited Richard Montanez

to pitch his new flavor of Cheeto to the board.

Of course, they were blown away,

and Flamin' Hot Cheetos were born.

By 1992, they were introduced to the snack world,

and it has never been the same since.

- Today, the flaming hot concept is a big marketing driver

for the Cheeto brand, with all sorts of flaming hot ideas.

I mean, you got flaming hot everywhere,

and they all do very, very well, for the Frito-Lay company.

- [Adam] As for Mr. Montanez, he was promoted

from his position as a janitor

and eventually became an Executive Vice President.

- His story is absolutely inspiring.

People throw around the term American Dream quite a lot,

but that is exactly it.

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] Here at Wise, we're following the potato chips

as they go through the process of being made.

After they're fried and sorted

through the high-tech optical sorter,

they travel up here, to the flavoring section.

In 1954, the first flavored potato chip was born in Ireland.

It was cheese and onion flavor.

Today, there are hundreds of flavors, ranging from barbecue

to maple bacon, from pickle flavor to prawn cocktail.

- [Jose] Here's the gate for the chips.

They have to go through here,

and here the scale that regulate the seasoning.

This is zesty jalapeno.

- Oh yeah, it's a little spicy up here.

I was hoping Jose would let me try one of these

zesty jalapeno samples right out of the hopper.

- [Adam] Whoo.

- [Jose] I hope you like it.

- Spicy.

You can smell the spice.

(coughing)

Oh my Gosh.

They're spicy but not like too much.

They are so crunchy, so crunchy, spicy,

but a little bit more like tangy, like a real jalapeno.

What's happening here?

What does this machine do?

- [Jose] Okay, this is now we call the packing machine.

- [Adam] Okay.

- This will dump the product and fill the bags,

down at the bottom.

At the bottom, we have another system

that will start making the bags.

- Raw potatoes, washed them, peeled them,

sliced them, fried them, seasoned them.

Packaging next?

- Yes.

- Vamanos.

We've gone from unloading the potatoes

to flavoring the chips.

The next step of the process is to see how Wise

gets these chips out the door and into your hands.

- There's 14 buckets that you saw upstairs.

- [Adam] Right.

There were five that work independently.

- [Terry] The computer will pick the best combination.

We'll hit the target weight of this bag

within 1/10th of a gram.

- So the actual role of bags is where?

It's on the back?

- From the back.

It actually looks like a roll of paper towels.

- [Adam] Oh, I see, so it's a continuous channel.

- [Terry] Continuous channel.

- [Adam] Now, is there a heating element

to solder it closed?

- [Terry] Yes, there's a heating element in the back

that runs vertical here,

to actually seal that and make the tube.

Then there's heating elements in each of the jaws

that will crimp that bag shut and cut the bag off.

- [Adam] This whole process hinges on perfect orchestration

and coordination, so it seems to be like

that dance between human ingenuity

and the reliance on the state-of-the-art technology.

- That's correct.

- [Adam] Here they come.

And if you think I'm letting one more bag go in front of me

and not try these things, you are sorely mistaken.

Aw, they are still warm.

Believe me, I understand how lucky I am

to be tasting these chips here at Wise,

that were potatoes that I dumped out of a truck

just a few hours ago.

So amazing and so delicious.

What? Don't judge me.

They're so good and spicy.

I love them.

(upbeat music)

When we get back, the man, the myth, the legend,

Flavor Master m m m Mike.

- Sir.

- [Adam] Flavor Master Mike

is gonna let me taste is latest inventions.

One is a sneak peek of a new flavor about to be in stores.

The others will never be tasted again.

Oh boy.

Wise has been kind enough to show us how they make

their magical potato chips, Cheez Doodles, and other snacks.

As a final treat, Flavor Master Mike is going to give me

an exclusive tasting of a product

that is going to hit the shelves, later this year.

Okay, what do we have in the mystery bags of love?

- Okay, these are our new Cheez Doodle, three flavors.

This is a progression.

As we whittle down the flavors as we went along,

these three were the finalists.

- [Adam] So this is still not yet hit the shelves, right?

- Yeah, this one never will

because it didn't make the final cut.

- Really? - [Mike] Right.

- So this is like limited edition.

This is like a hyperstrike.

This is like a streetwear drop that you can't get to.

This is friends and family only.

Bright red, I always associate with heat.

Oh boy.

That's a humdinger, whoo.

Wow, there's like this black pepper in there

'cause I feel this little bit of a sneeze coming on.

So what was the reason these didn't make it?

- We thought there was a little bit

too much smoke in that flavor.

- [Adam] Smoke?

- You were right about the pepper.

It's a chili pepper lime.

These are the two finalists.

It's like the first runner up and the second runner up.

- Oh, these look awesome.

They almost look like chicken fingers.

Look at that.

Oh, again, a sour note, a little bit of a heat note,

but also a faint sweet note.

- It's basically a heat.

It's called a lava heat, and you were right.

It has less heat than the other one,

and that's the reason it was rejected.

It didn't have enough heat.

- And this is the winner.

This is the one that we are gonna be launching.

(Adam laughing)

We're back to red again.

- Whoa, fire engine red.

Do not attempt to adjust your dial.

This is a sneak preview, people.

I hope you're appreciating what you're getting.

These are delicious.

(upbeat music)

They're not as, they're hot but they're not as

aggressively hot as number one and not as sour.

What I like about these,

it hasn't lost the cheese element of it.

The other flavors I got the sour, I got that heat.

Here, I got the heat, but it's still a Cheez Doodle,

but do not approach lightly.

I am salivating like a Rottweiler looking at a T-bone.

I am...

No joke, delicious but don't rub your eyes.

Secure the bag, people.

Extreme Cheddar, boom, coming your way, summer 2021.

Flavor Master Mike, the great people here at Wise,

bringing you literally the new hotness.

Who doesn't love a good snack, and who could possibly resist

all the deliciousness, here at Wise?

These good people literally work 'round the clock

to make sure that your senses are satisfied

and your palette is pleased.

(upbeat music)

So the next time you're tearing into some

marinated, mouthwatering jerky, or a sinking your teeth

into the pillowy softness of a fresh baked pretzel,

or crunching your way through the savory, spicy,

cheesy crackling perfection of your favorite

crispy snack chips, remember, it takes a lot of hard work

to make snacking so easy.

So when your hunger has your hankering,

and your taste buds are tingling, and you're in the mood

for some comfort food, take a break, sit on back,

and treat yourself to a snack.

See you next time. (upbeat music)