Cones first, then pretzels, then a pretzel shaped like a loop.

Grippo’s is a snack food company in Cincinnati, Ohio, known for its Bar-B-Q potato chips and sold mainly in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. It began in 1919. The Evansville Courier & Press reported in April 2019, as the company reached its hundredth year, that Grippo’s was formed in Cincinnati that year by Angelo Grippo. The Cincinnati Enquirer, in a report by Polly Campbell published by USA Today on 29 January 2013, named the founders as Angelo and Emma Grippo, and a 700WLW profile of the company’s president in January 2023 did the same.

The first product was not a chip. The Enquirer and the Courier & Press both say the company started by making ice cream cones. A post on the blog of the Cincinnati auction marketplace Everything But The House, published in April 2015, says Angelo Grippo manufactured rolled sugar cones in a one-room office on Court Street in the centre of the city, and the company’s own “About Grippo’s” text, published with its sports partnerships in 2022, also places the start in a one-room office in downtown Cincinnati.

Pretzels followed. The Enquirer and the Courier & Press date them to 1923, and the auction blog says that in the 1920s Grippo sold them for a penny each. The pretzel that became the company’s own came next. The Enquirer reported in 2013 that Grippo’s loop-shaped pretzels appeared in 1930, made on a machine Angelo Grippo designed himself, and that they were still a signature product; the auction blog also dates the loop pretzel to 1930. The company’s 2022 text puts it in 1923, saying Angelo “created the famous loop pretzel” that year.

Potato chips arrived much later. The Enquirer, the Courier & Press and the auction blog all say Grippo’s added potato chips in 1959, and the Enquirer says the barbecue variety came along shortly after. The company says it moved in 1959 to its present site on Colerain Avenue, where the Courier & Press photographed its factory in 2019.

A family firm that stayed close to home.

Grippo’s has stayed with the family that founded it. The Enquirer reported in 2013 that the company had turned down offers to sell to outsiders, even as the snack business grew more difficult, and described it as a family enterprise that had stuck to its core business. The Courier & Press wrote in 2019 that the small company had “defied the age of corporate takeovers”, and said that in the 1960s the company belonged to the Pagel family.

The family still runs it. When the University of Cincinnati athletics department announced a three-year partnership on 8 September 2022, naming Grippo’s the official chip of UC Athletics, it quoted Teri Baker as president of the Grippo Potato Chip Company. On 2 November 2022 the Cincinnati Bengals announced a multi-year partnership making Grippo’s Chips the team’s “Official Hometown Chip”, and quoted Baker calling the Bengals “a fellow family owned and operated Cincinnati icon”. The UC announcement added that Grippo’s was also the official chip of the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Zoo, and the company’s website says it is the official chip of the Reds. In the company’s own words, several generations of the Grippo family are involved in daily operations.

Its market is regional by design. The Enquirer quoted the company’s sales manager, Jerry Hawk, in 2013 describing a strategy of “Start small and grow tall”: building demand in small family stores and gas stations before larger shelves. The paper said the range stretched west to Evansville, Indiana, south to Corbin, Kentucky, and to Columbus, Dayton and Indianapolis, with mail order for fans further away. The company’s 2022 text says it distributes in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky and ships nationally by mail order.

Evansville became a second home for the chips. The Courier & Press reported that Grippo’s first became involved with the city in the 1960s, when a local firm, Hessmer’s, needed a new place to make its plain chips and Grippo’s agreed to pack them. Allan and Kris Proctor later set up a distributorship there, A&D Distributing, which the paper said was run in 2019 by Lloyd Young. The same article described local restaurants using crushed Bar-B-Q Grippo’s as an ingredient, including a pizza topped with pulled pork and a reduction of Ski soda.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group are American sweets and regional potato chips: boxed chocolates, jelly beans, cinnamon candies, marshmallow shapes and chips sold mainly in the cities where they began. Brands of this kind sit at very different points in the trade, from family companies that still carry a founder’s name to labels that have passed through several owners, and a single name can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a supermarket aisle.

A candy or chip brand’s identity is usually carried less by one product than by a box, a bag, a seasonal pack and a name, because the company behind it may have changed hands, moved its production or grown well beyond the place where it started. Candy boxes and holiday packs return each year with familiar colours, while a regional chip bag often leans on the city it comes from. That makes the plain questions worth asking: who started it, who owns it now, and where it is made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Red and blue on the can, and a barbecue flavour people describe by its texture.

Grippo’s packaging has become something Cincinnati collects. The Everything But The House blog wrote in April 2015 that the company’s distinctive packaging had become a sought-after collectible for local buyers, and described an early chip can, still with its original lid, carrying a striking red and blue graphic. The blog said the potato chips added in 1959 were packed in cans like it.

The product itself carries much of the identity. The Enquirer’s 2013 report described the Bar-B-Q flavour starting as a texture, “like soft crystalline dust”, coating the round, flat chip, followed by sweetness and a vinegar-tinged heat. The Courier & Press called the chips “velvety, sweet and spicy” and reported that fans in Evansville valued the seasoning left in the bottom of the bag or box. The same article listed other flavours, among them a Carolina-style tangy barbecue and sweet Maui onion, while the Enquirer named Sweet Bermuda Onion and Hot Dill Pickle.

The pretzel gives the company a second shape. The Enquirer described Grippo’s loop pretzels as a signature product made on a machine Angelo Grippo designed, and the company’s own text names the loop pretzel alongside its 1919 founding.

The brand also speaks in its own voice. The company’s website calls Grippo’s “the original ‘Fun Food Company’” and closes with a pun on its name, telling readers that when someone says “get a grip!”, they should get Grippo’s. Its 2022 partnerships placed the name in the concession stands of the Bengals’ stadium and across the University of Cincinnati campus, and the Bengals said co-branded Grippo’s products would follow at local retailers. The Enquirer also noted Cincinnati restaurants putting Grippo’s inside grilled cheese sandwiches.

For a design guide, Grippo’s shows how a family snack maker can build an identity on one flavour, one pretzel shape and one city, and let red and blue packaging and a pun on its name do the rest. Compare it with Old Dutch, another Midwestern chip maker, and Zapps, a regional chip from Louisiana. For this guide we use can red, can blue, Bar-B-Q dust and barbecue dark with a slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Grippo’s’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.