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A former Frito-Lay janitor has filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo, the snack firm’s parent company, for denying he is the creator of its popular Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Richard Montañez has long claimed he invented the spicy snack while working at Frito-Lay in Southern California.
His “rags to riches” story garnered him a book deal, titled Flamin’ Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man’s Rise from Janitor to Top Executive, and the biopic Flamin’ Hot directed by Eva Longoria.
However, Frito-Lay has repeatedly denied that Montañez was involved in the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, going so far as to call his story an “urban legend.”
Now, Montañez has accused the company of engaging in a “smear campaign” against him. In a lawsuit filed on July 18 in California Superior Court, the motivational speaker said he is the victim of fraud, racial discrimination, defamation, and violations of California’s unfair competition law.
The filing made reference to a 2021 Los Angeles Times article, in which former Frito-Lay product development employees said no one could recall Montañez pitching a spicy snack that could cater to the Hispanic community.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Montañez referred to the article as “defamatory” and claimed that the company’s comments have since “taken a devastating toll” on his motivational speaking career.
Montañez was reportedly earning up to $50,000 per speaking engagement, but lost “numerous partnerships” and saw “a significant decrease in bookings” since the article’s publication – having booked “just four speaking engagements” this year.
“Defendants’ false statements concerning Mr. Montañez have made the public, and potential business partners, distrustful of him and his narrative. His livelihood, and mental health, have directly suffered as result,” the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit also detailed Montañez’s version of the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, in which he was working as a janitor at Frito-Lay’s warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga when he envisioned a chile-covered Cheeto.
In his memoir, released in 2021, Montañez claimed he later pitched the idea to “leading executives” at Frito-Lay, but was met with resistance from the research and development team while attempting to mass produce the snack.
“Dissatisfied that Mr. Montañez – a poor, uneducated Mexican plant worker and janitor – had successfully developed a new product, Frito-Lay’s R&D personnel completely shut out Mr. Montañez from the development process,” the lawsuit read. “Only recently has it become clear that the discriminatory and hostile treatment that Mr. Montañez endured from Frito-Lay’s R&D group was intended to discourage or disadvantage the development of Mr. Montañez’s spicy Cheetos in order to heavily favor the Midwest division’s formulation, spearheaded by more traditional R&D employees.”
However, Frito-Lay has claimed to the Los Angeles Times that none of the company’s records show Montañez “was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market.”
“We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market,” Frito-Lay told the outlet. Instead, the company credited a junior employee in Texas, Lynne Greenfeld, for coming up with the idea and name in 1989. She reportedly contacted Frito-Lay in 2018 after hearing Montañez’s version, prompting an internal investigation.
“I created Flamin’ Hot Cheetos not only as a product but as a movement and as a loyal executive for PepsiCo,” Montañez said in a press release on July 22. “PepsiCo believed in me as a leader because they knew people would follow me, and they did because they knew my soul is my community. We built this into a $2 billion industry, and I cannot let them take away my legacy or destroy my reputation. I will not let them silence me.”
According to the lawsuit, Montañez is seeking a jury trial, damages, restitution, and an order preventing PepsiCo and Frito-Lay from claiming that he is not the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. A Frito-Lay spokesperson would not comment on pending litigation to the Los Angeles Times.
The Independent has contacted Frito-Lay for comment.
