I took a tour of the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory, because why not?

On July 4th, 1980, a delight almost as alluring as America itself was born: the Cape Cod Potato Chip. Since its start in Massachusetts’ famed vacation spot, the company has grown into a national snacking staple. The Cape Cod Potato Chip company expanded into a modest factory in 1985, a factory that now provides free tours of the life cycle of the potato chip.

The factory not only acts as an interest point for tourists, with over 250,000 visiting yearly, but also provides a stable source of employment for the beach community, which largely operates under a seasonal economic structure.

The job stability Cape Cod Potato Chips provides was the primary pull for Wayne Jackson, who works in Retail Sales and Marketing for the company.

“I needed a job. I needed a job and this was year round, which is unusual for the Cape,” Jackson said. “They are usually summer jobs, seasonal jobs.”

Jackson, an employee at the factory for 20 years, has found the experience provides more than just a steady paycheck.

“You never know where potato chips come from if you just get them from out of the store, so just to watch the whole process is amazing. The hours and the time that’s put in for it to be done is amazing. I work in the warehouse. I also work out here now, with the tour, and you meet so many interesting people from all over. So it’s a pretty unique job.”

The process is certainly demanding when it comes to resources. To create one pound of Cape Cod Potato Chips, it requires four pounds of potatoes. The factory uses 39 million potatoes annually to address their demand. While the process is assisted greatly with the industrial mainstays of conveyor belts, weight and temperature gauges and industrial fryers, it still requires human supervision for quality assurance and specified manual attention.

The live viewing of the process occurs through glass windows along a corridor, where guests are provided with informative factoids and aggressive requests not to take any pictures of the activities beyond the glass. While the signs were complied with, they do spark curiosity as to why they exist at all. What is inside that can’t be documented?

Intrigue aside, families seem to enjoy the quick, self-guided tour of potato chip manufacturing. Natalia Kam, 10, traveled with her family from Larchmont, New York to visit to factory.

“I liked seeing the chips on the conveyor belt, it was cool seeing them get made. It is different than I expected, because I thought it would have been a little strange to watch people do their job, but it was fun.”

Erik Hong, a frequent visitor to the Cape, was also seeing the process for the first time with his family.

“We have heard of it before. We’ve always been to the Cape but we’ve never stopped by here, so we figured, we eat the chips, we might as well show the kids where they are made,” he said.

If you make your way out to Cape Cod in the future, try to fit a potato chip factory tour into the itinerary. Yes, the tour is quick, self-guided and shrouded in unnecessary mystery (why can’t I capture the birth of a most beloved snack on camera?), but the people and free samples you interact with make it worth the trip. Besides, it’s never a bad day to walk away feeling like Marc Summers in an episode of Unwrapped, with a fresh bag of potato chips in hand.