TFA goes into this in detail. They asked Carey, he said Montañez came up with the flavour. Then they confronted Carey with the fact that the product pre-exists Montañez‘s involvement by years, and was developed by other people entirely. Carey replied that Montañez was essential in “reformulating” the flavour to make it the success it is today.

Then they asked the company about that, and Frito Lay responded that they’ve been buying the same seasoning from McCormick since the initial 1989 test market trials in the northeast that predate Montañez’s 1993-1994 Sabrositas pitch. Not only has it not been reformulated, Montañez entire story (not directly related in this article) of single handedly developing the flavouring to dunk unflavoured cheetos he took home with him for his pitch must be bullshit, since it’s entirely developed by and sourced from a third-party company.

His response:

> Carey said he was unsure how to account for that contradiction. “I’m sure if you went back into the Frito-Lay history, OK, there’s probably something in 1990 that was a test market on a spicy product,” he said. “I’ll be surprised if it was this same ingredient, but it could have been, I guess.”

“Ok sure, the entire product may already have been in test somewhere else and I’d be very surprised to learn it had all the same ingredients”, which it did. Incredible stuff. Probably just a coincidence he also gets co-speaking fees with Montañez in some appearances.