Jack “Boss” Hogg plucks a bag from the end of the line at the Peerless Potato Chips plant, rips it open, and dumps it. The machinery is supposed to drop exactly three ounces of freshly fried chips into each one, but every so often the scale hiccups, and Hogg, who’s packing them into boxes, can feel it when one is light. “I’ve been doing it for almost 50 years,” he says.
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With the recent sale of Jays Potato Chips to Pennsylvania-based Snyder’s of Hanover, Peerless is one of the few independent chip makers left in the region, and with big boys like Frito-Lay eating up more and more shelf space, their position is increasingly precarious.
“I remember years ago we couldn’t have a truck go into the city of Chicago,” he says. “Cops would pull you over. . . . Nobody came into Chicago.”
In the afternoon after the line shuts down, Hogg checks in invoices from the company’s six drivers, pays the bills, and does the ordering. Most nights he’s lucky to leave by 9 PM.
