How did Old Dutch potato chips get started in St. Paul?

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When someone asks you to pick up a box of chips — not a bag — you know you’re in the Midwest.

The Old Dutch twin pack has long been a snack-food staple across the middle of the country. The boxes stand rigid and proud on shelves amid crinkle-bagged competitors.

The company with the red and yellow windmill logo has been frying sliced potatoes for 90 years and now shares the chip aisle with national labels. Its beginning, however, was as local as you can get: A kitchen in St. Paul.

Jeff Tollefson, who lives in Eau Claire and grew up eating Old Dutch chips, was intrigued when his up-north cabin neighbors in Wisconsin told him they live in the St. Paul house where the company was born. Tollefson wanted to know more about the brand’s history. He asked Curious Minnesota, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s reader-powered reporting project: How did Old Dutch get its start?

Founder Carl Marx began hand-cooking potato chips at his Macalester-Groveland home in 1934 and packaged them in little wax bags. Marx picked the name “Old Dutch” because “he associated the Dutch with long-standing cleanliness and quality,” according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

While Marx left little in the public record before his death in 1970, his former home at 1463 Grand Av. now carries a plaque commemorating the birthplace of Old Dutch, which reads in part: “These chips eventually became one of Minnesota’s most beloved snack products.”

In 1937, the company moved to downtown Minneapolis, where it would remain for decades. The building at 4th Avenue and S. 3rd Street had such big windows that passersby on the sidewalk could peer in. They watched as workers fried chips and packed them in tins, which predated today’s Old Dutch bags and boxes.

By 1941, the company had 50 employees and sold chips, popcorn and nuts, according to the Minneapolis Daily Journal. Minneapolis artist Les Kouba designed the famed Old Dutch windmill logo later that decade.

In 1951, at age 52, Marx sold the company to Vernon Aanenson and Arthur Eggert for $250,000.

It did not take long for the new owners to leave their mark. Within six years they tripled production, according to the Minneapolis Star, and after a decade, sales had grown from $1 million to $20 million annually.

The new owners made a key decision in the mid-1950s that continues to fuel the company’s success today — expanding into Canada. The first cases of “dime bags” (so called because they cost 10 cents) were shipped across the Minnesota border to Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1954. Old Dutch started production in Winnipeg in 1959 and has expanded across Canada several times since.

Old Dutch also bought a plant in East Grand Forks, Minn., to expand U.S. production around the same time.

Disaster struck in 1965, when the downtown Minneapolis Old Dutch warehouse was destroyed by fire. One firefighter died battling the blaze.

Eggert sold his stake in the business soon after, leaving Aanenson solely in control. Although production equipment was spared and the business kept selling chips, the fire sparked plans to move operations.

In 1968, Old Dutch opened a new plant and headquarters in Roseville. The sprawling production facility on Terminal Road remains the company’s home to this day.

Within a decade, Old Dutch was frying 50 million pounds of potatoes in 5 million pounds of oil annually. Many of those potatoes came from the Red River Valley. They still do, though suppliers vary across the seasons.

By 1978, the company had firmly established its signature product — the box of chips.

“Midwesterners prefer their potato chips in large bags packed in boxes,” the Minneapolis Star reported at the time. “In other areas, customers are content to purchase the crispy chips in bags.”

The boxes remain a bestseller to this day in part because they stand out from rivals in bags and have become visually linked with the brand.

Further cementing Old Dutch in the public imagination as the foodstuff of the Great North, the chips made 1990s cameos in the films “Grumpier Old Men” and “Fargo.”

“Yes, Minnesota’s most regionally identified food product since Pearson’s Nut Goodie has gone Hollywood,” former Star Tribune reporter Kristin Tillotson wrote.

By the end of the century, Canada accounted for the biggest share of Old Dutch’s $220 million in sales. Canadian sales remain a major part of the business today. Ketchup-flavored chips and condiment-mashup “all-dressed” varieties are especially popular in the provinces.

When Aanenson died in 1998 at age 81, he had expanded Old Dutch into an “icon of the Upper Midwest and Canada,” the Star Tribune wrote.

His son Steve Aanenson took over the business and continues to run it today.

Asked in August how the brand has survived for 90 years, he said: “The whole idea is, if you’re not proud to serve the product to your family and friends, don’t let it go out the door.”

The company has acquired a few other brands over the years, including fellow Minnesota chip maker Barrel O’ Fun in 2018 and New England snack brand Humpty Dumpty. But Old Dutch is still only found in ten states in the middle of the U.S., from Montana to Michigan and south to Kansas and Missouri.

Growing beyond those borders might mean finding another regional brand to buy or investing in new infrastructure, company leaders said. About 600 employees work for the company in the U.S., mostly in Minnesota.

Old Dutch has two plants in the U.S.: the potato chip factory in Roseville and a corn chip plant in Minneapolis that was formerly Happy’s. The Roseville plant is at capacity but has room to grow into a nearby building the company bought a decade ago.

A mix of time-tested and newer, more automated equipment cleans, slices, sorts, fries, seasons and bags hundreds of thousands of pounds of potato chips an hour.

Potatoes are brought in by the truckload and make their way through a variety of machines and conveyor belts that sort out defective potatoes. The scraps are later sent to a farmer to feed the pigs.

Railcar tankers full of cooking oil are delivered several times a week to crisp up the chips, both for traditional and kettle-cooked varieties. Seasoning is added in mechanical barrels that aim to coat chips evenly before they fall, in measured scoops, into bags that are sealed as quickly as they’re created. Then they are boxed for delivery and sent out to stores, often via signature red-and-white trucks.

“The goal is to eventually expand. We’re going to need more manufacturing space because we are growing,” said Stephanie Aanenson, Steve’s daughter and the director of special projects at Old Dutch. “And so that’s going to be something I think I’ll be tasked with in my career: How are we going to extend that manufacturing space? And does it make sense to do it here?”

Old Dutch has tried to keep pace with snacking trends over the years, introducing corn chips, kettle chips, the ridged “Rip-L” chips and a variety of flavors — including dill pickle. But don’t expect the brand to be first to market with every cutting-edge flavor trend.

“We don’t try to jump on anything totally crazy,” said Stephanie Aanenson.

“People always ask about our spicy dill: ‘Is it spicy?’” she said. “Well, it’s Midwest spicy.”

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