10 supermarket brands you'd never connect. All one company.

Chips, soda, sports drinks, oats: one parent on the shelf.: PepsiCo · Pepsi · Lay's · Doritos · Cheetos · Gatorade · Quaker · Mountain Dew · Aquafina · Ruffles · Tostitos

PepsiCo isn't a soda company: it's a snack-and-drink empire. Chips, dips, oats, sports drinks, water: a huge slice of the aisle rolls up to one owner. Decades of acquisitions (Frito-Lay, Quaker, Gatorade) bought scale, and scale buys shelf space. The more brands one company controls, the more of the aisle it can claim, edging rivals out.

A few giants own the brands you think you're choosing between. The variety is real; the competition often isn't.