The company was founded by Ron Zappe, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in industrial engineering and became a distributor of pumps and other oil-field equipment.

His four companies went bankrupt during the 1980s oil bust; he moved from Houston to Louisiana and started a potato chip business.

Zapp's "Tiger Tators" were the first food product licensed by Louisiana State University, and it also sold "Who Dat?"

Zapp's most popular flavor is "Voodoo" which was created in 2008 by Kevin Holden, General Manager and a shareholder of the company.

Zappe appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1997, and the chips were profiled in national publications such as People and The Wall Street Journal.