Ron Zappe, who founded Zapp's Potato Chips in Gramercy and turned the little chip factory into a national phenomenon, died Tuesday in Houston, where he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer. He was 67.
Rod Olson, general manager of the company, said Mr. Zappe was a classic entrepreneur.
He said Mr. Zappe's wife came home from the grocery story one day with a bag of kettle-fried chips made in Texas, giving him the idea to create such a product in Louisiana.
"My wife, Anne, thought I'd gone nuts,'' Mr. Zappe once said. "But I told her, 'No, not nuts, chips.''
Mr. Zappe said he had trouble selling his idea to lenders as well.
"I asked 10 banks for a loan to begin the venture and they all laughed me out of the office,'' he said. "The 11th finally gave me my start. I never gave up. That's the secret.''
Mr. Zappe bought the former Faucheux Chevrolet dealership in Gramercy where he began making a thicker-cut, kettle-fried potato chip cooked in peanut oil.
The chip maker's flamboyant personality brought him coverage in national publications like the Wall Street Journal and People Magazine.
His Zapp's Tiger Tators became the first food product licensed by LSU and he sold Who Dat? chips 10 years before the Saints won the Super Bowl. Mr. Zappe came up with Cajun Crawtators in 1985, which company officials said was the nation's first spicy potato chip.
