Golden Flake Snack Foods
Formerly based in Birmingham, Jefferson County, Golden Flake Snack Foods is a manufacturer and distributor of packaged foods that include fried potato chips, tortilla and corn chips, cheese curls, pork skins, and other snacks. Previously billing itself as “The South’s Original Potato Chip,” Golden was acquired by Pennsylvania-based Utz Quality Foods in 2016.
The Golden Flake brand originated as Magic City Foods in 1923 when two Birmingham residents, Mose Lischkoff and Frank Mosher, began producing and selling potato chips, peanuts, horseradish, and peanut butter cracker sandwiches in the basement of a store owned by the Hill Grocery Company. By 1924, their crackers and kettle-cooked chips, called Golden Flake Potato Chips because of their appearance, were selling so well that they hired two salesmen. Within a few years, Lischkoff sold his shares to company bookkeeper Helen Friedman and her mother. Friedman and Mosher married in 1928, and she became a spokesperson for the company in its advertising. The couple divorced in 1934, and Friedman won the company in the settlement.
Technological innovations in packaging in the 1930s allowed potato chips and other snack foods to stay fresh over long periods of time, and Friedman was thus able to expand sales routes to other cities in Alabama. Annual sales continued to increase, even during the Great Depression, and by 1940, Magic City Foods had 50 employees and an 8,000-square-foot factory in Birmingham. In 1946, Friedman sold the company to Pike County native Leopold E. Bashinsky and his brother-in-law, Cyrus Case. After the sale, the company’s name was changed to Magic City Food Products. By the early 1950s, sales had reached $1 million annually; by the end of the decade, sales were roughly $3 million a year. The company’s clown mascot, Goldie, became a popular cultural icon on local television and radio during this era. In 1956, Sloan Y. Bashinsky, who had started working for the company in production and route sales, bought the company from his father and uncle. Sloan changed the company’s name to Golden Flake, Inc., in 1957. A year later, production moved to a new facility in Birmingham. In 1960, Golden Flake became a sponsor of Paul “Bear” Bryant’s weekly television show on which he recapped Crimson Tide football games. (The show, and Golden Flake sponsorship, would run until 1982.)
In 1963, the company established its first production facility outside of Alabama with the purchase of Don’s Foods, Inc., a Nashville, Tennessee, snack food producer and distributor. (The plant was sold in 2000 as part of a restructuring plan.) Golden Flake, Inc. went public in 1968, and employees were offered the opportunity to purchase stock, but the Bashinsky family retained majority ownership. Beginning in 1971, the company diversified into real estate, construction, insurance, fasteners (bolts and screws), and advertising. These various companies became wholly owned subsidiaries of the holding company Golden Enterprises, Inc., when it was created in 1977. At the same time, Golden Flake, Inc. became Golden Flake Snack Foods. Of note, during the 1970s, Goldie was replaced by Gobbler, a giant hairy monster with a straw hat designed by famed Muppets creator Jim Henson.
During the 1980s, the company continued to expand, with more than 2,000 employees and sales throughout the South. Bashinsky used some of his increasing wealth to establish the Bashinsky Foundation, which provided college scholarship money to Golden Flake employees. In 1988, the company was one of two charter corporate partners of college football’s Southeastern Conference. It also sponsors races at the Talladega Superspeedway, as well as The Rick & Bubba Show, a nationally syndicated morning radio program.
In 1991, John Stein, who joined the company in 1961 as a route salesman, became CEO, with Bashinsky retaining the board chair position. By the time that Stein was named chair, in 1996, all of Golden Enterprises’ nonfood subsidiaries had been sold. Wayne Pate, who joined the company in 1968, served as president from 1998 until his retirement in 2000. In 2001, another long-time employee, Mark McCutcheon, was named president and CEO and eventually board chair in 2010. The Bashinsky family remained the largest shareholder through SYB, Inc., an investment holding company. In 2016, Golden Enterprises was purchased by Pennsylvania-based snack giant Utz Quality Foods, which continues to sell snacks under the Golden Flake name. Utz continued to produce potato chips at the Birmingham factory until June 2023, when it was permanently shuttered.
