Walkers is a British snack food manufacturer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland and to a lesser extent on the European continent. They are best known for manufacturing crisps, and other non-potato based snack foods. They hold 47 per cent of the British crisp market.  The Walkers site in Leicester is one of the largest crisp production plants in the world, producing over 11 million bags of crisps per day and using about 800t of potatoes.

History

In the 1880s Henry Walker moved from Mansfield to Leicester to take over an established butcher’s shop in the high street. Meat rationing after World War IIsaw the factory output drop dramatically and the company looked at alternatives to make use of the wasted capacity. With potato crisps being increasingly popular with the public, managing director R.E. Gerrard helped the company shift focus and began hand-slicing and frying potatoes.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia