I mentioned this contest on the blog last summer, and some the commenters seemed to mistake our post for the official entry form. One lucky contestant was to receive $1 million from Plano-based Frito-Lay in exchange for a great new flavor idea for Lay’s potato chips.
Well, the winning flavor is Cheesy Garlic Bread. It beat out the other two finalists, Chicken & Waffles and Sriracha. The company received more than 3.8 million entries, and an online vote determined the winner.
A Wisconsin librarian named Karen Weber-Mendham gets the cash. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal interviewed her:
Weber-Mendham entered the contest to pick a new potato chip flavor last year at the urging of her 13-year-old son, Davey. She submitted her idea because who, after all, doesn’t like cheese, garlic and bread?
In her contest entry she wrote that her children always clamor for an appetizer when the family goes out to dinner and because she’s a mom, she always says no. That is, unless the family is dining at an Italian restaurant and Weber-Mendham smells the garlic wafting from the kitchen. So she relents and orders garlic bread. With cheese, of course.
“That’s what you do when you’re from Wisconsin, you put cheese on everything,” she said.
