Stacy Madison
Phuong Nguyen

Stacy's Pita Chips - Stacy Madison (2019)

In the 1990's, Stacy Madison and her boyfriend Mark Andrus were selling pita sandwiches from a converted hot dog cart in Boston. They decided to bake the leftover pita into chips, adding a dash of parmesan or cinnamon-sugar. At first they handed them out for free, but soon discovered that people were happy to pay for them. So they eventually decided to leave the sandwich cart behind and launch Stacy's Pita Chips. They hoped the brand might grow into a modest regional business—but it kept growing. Roughly ten years after the launch, Stacy's sold to PepsiCo for $250 million.

Show Notes:

2:10 - Intro

4:14 - Starting out in social work

7:28 - Meeting Mark Andrus and working in food

13:07 - Moving to Boston and buying a food cart

18:05 - Starting to make pita chips

22:29 - Mass producing

26:10 - Money problems

30:00 - Marketing

36:11 - Scaling

38:13 - Competition

39:15 - Turning a profit

40:01 - Getting a divorce

43:43 - Growing

46:30 - Getting acquired by Pepsi

47:40 - A fire in the factory

49:32 - Life changing money

53:00 - Figuring out the rest of her life

55:30 - Hard work vs. luck

Selected Links:

Stacy's Pita Chips

Brian Scudamore - 1-800-GOT-JUNK

Lisa Price - Carol’s daughter

Mark Andrus

Au Bon Pain

Whole Foods

Trader Joe’s

Pepsi acquires Stacy’s

BeBOLD Bars

Listen on Spotify PodcastsListen on Google PodcastsListen on Apple Podcasts
See All Episodes

Keep up with
Guy Raz

Sign up to Guy's mailing list to receive exclusive articles, interviews, updates, and more.

Thank you! Your email has been added to Guy's mailing list.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.