Top Hat–Another Potato Chip Made in York
Former Krispy Products/National Biscuit Company potato chip factory
I thought I had pretty well exhausted the subject of commercial potato chip makers of York County. Then I visited my older brother in Florida a couple of weeks ago. He asked me if I had come across any references to Top Hat potato chips, made in York.
Probably in the late 1940s or early 1950s his late wife worked at a potato chip factory off of Prospect Street in York. He couldn’t recall the name of the company, but he said that the brand of chips was Top Hat. He also said that National Biscuit Company bought the company and closed down the factory after a few years.
Here is what I pieced together, using the city directories at York County Heritage Trust:
The factory was at 736 Vander Avenue (near Boundary Avenue). I first found Krispy Products, Inc. in the 1948 volume. By 1950 the National Biscuit Co. was there. They appear through the 1955 directory as a potato chip manufacturer at that address. The YCHT collection is missing the 1956 directory, and the 1957 one lists the property as vacant. It was listed as vacant for several years, until W. B. Killhour & Sons, Inc. paper wholesalers is there in 1961. As you can see by the photograph, the building is now occupied by Poff Sheet Metal.
I don’t know if the National Biscuit Company made Top Hat chips anywhere else after they closed the Vander Avenue plant, or if they retired the brand. I did an internet search, but the only Top Hat chips I turned up was a Canadian brand.
Does anyone else remember Top Hat chips or the Krispy Products company?
Click below for previous potato chip posts.
Utz not to be sold after all.
Martin’s.
Utz of Hanover.
Bon-Ton /Bickel’s.
Senft’s.
El-Ge/Eagle Snacks/Frito-Lay.
Charles Chips.
Chip vending machine invented in York.
