To say that the variety of crisps has gone downhill?

[mrsfindlay]

Why oh why won't they bring back ready salted chipsticks? Or even the supermarkets knock of version!? Why can't you buy single (or mutli) packets of walkers ready salted squares? I know my taste in crisps is boring, as I mainly long for discontinued ready salted flavours. Although I do miss branningtons(?) beef and mustard...Anyone remember ready salted kangaroo shaped crisps from the 90s? And those little ready salted triangles and or the ready salted tubes (same texture as walkers squares) both from sainsburys. Also, I have fond memories ot these maize based bacon flavour chipsticks (no idea what they were called) Anyone else remember these ?

Polish/Eastern European shops have a good variety. I am particularly fond of these. https://www.smakolyk.co.uk/en/product/potato-snack/

We’ve had these! The peanut flavour puffs are good too. You can get similar in Lidl on American week!

Oh I loved brannigans beef and mustard!!! Devestated when they were discontinued!

This thread makes me hungry. I want crisps! I love that my phone autocorrects crisps to crisis every time and I have to correct it. I'm going to get some of the aforementioned local shop knock off M&S spicy combo mix tomorrow and scoff the lot whilst watching tv as a Friday night special. Needs must! I like them when they've gone a little soft/chewy.

I like them when they've gone a little soft/chewy

This is a thread for people who like crisps, not people who like soggies.

Pervert 😐

Tudor specials 😋
Burton's puffs 😋
Those little garlic bread bites 😋
I need them all!!!

The number of crisps you get in a pack has certainly gone downhill!

I got 7 in one out of a multipack the other day!

I loved salt and vinegar dry roasted peanuts back in the day-they were the best.

For anyone who misses the Brannigans Beef and Mustard, Real crisps Ham and Mustard are ace. The Mustard really gets your sinuses! Mind, they aren't that easy to find, but our hospital café sells them and I'm there a lot so it keeps me going. They also do Roast Ox which are amazing and Salt and Black Pepper. Like all of the packs though, it's a but disappointing when you open them and see how little there are in a pack.

OMG they were amazing! The salt and vinegar dust at the bottom was like crack!!

Golden Cross... Bloody love them, loads of different flavours too. Homebargains sell them and the onion rings and bacon snack things too by that company.

@Weatherdial that's the brand they do the knock off M&S combo! Nicer in my opinion too.

Scampi fries my favourite

@JustACountryMusicGirlInCowboyBoots Farmer Browns were indeed delicious.
Im very partial to a crinkle cut Tomato Sauce crisp too which I only ever see in Spain or Greece.

I used to like salt and vinegar discos. Like valleting your mouth. My other half ate a multipack once and then got gout.

Yes Brannigans were the best. Miss them.

I discovered Iron Bru jelly babies but they've disappeared again.

Lidl do an own brand Pringle equivalent that are usually wheat free (although do check as we had one batch that used a different recipe) and they are even better than super expensive Schar curves!

Omg I read every single response looking for someone to say this…I was about 5 I think when I last had them my dad used to let me get a pack in the vending machine after taking me swimming.

Nobody and I mean NOBODY I mention them to ever remembers but they were sooo good! Best part of thirty years on I remember that taste. (We were never allowed ultra processed foods as kids! These were such a treat!) Far superior to the roast beef ones. On a par with Flamin’ Hot. Think they were called Spaghetti Sauce flavour and in a blue bag?

I discovered Iron Bru jelly babies but they've disappeared again.

Currently available at my Lidl In Scotland possible because Burns Night is in a few days.

Definitely gonna try them!

I sometimes make a special trip to Lidl to buy their fake Pringles! (Price has shot up recently, though 😒) But I had no idea there had been batches that were unsafe 😱 Appreciate the warning, thank you.

Yanbu. These have vanished from M&S.

If you live abroad the crisp aisle on a trip home is a thing of glory!

Another thing that pisses me off is when products don't disappear, but are changed so much they might as well have.

I used to love Popchips (the ones in the big bags, not the ones in the small multipack packets which were smaller with a different texture) — a bit pricey, so I'd wait until they were on special offer, but light, moreish, and with good intense flavours (and explicitly gluten-free). Even the plain Sea Salted ones were delicious: strongly salty with a good sea-salt complexity enhancing the umami flavours of the underlying crisps.

Then they suddenly removed almost all the salt, in all the flavours, and replaced it with potassium chloride.

The only indication they'd done that was that they'd added the word "flavour" in tiny text under the words Sea Salt.

Now, it's not like I'm not used to potassium chloride. My parents switched to Lo Salt when I was a kid, and my partner uses it at home (though I stick with ordinary salt, for health and flavour reasons). As long as you don't replace too much of the sodium salt, it can be okay. Hula Hoops switched out some of their salt for potassium chloride many years ago, and though it was a slight adjustment, it was tolerable.

But the Popchips? They went from being my favourite treatish snack to utterly inedible. Both the sour cream flavour and the sea salt flavour were so strongly bitter and metallic you could barely taste anything else, but worse, they burned my mouth as I ate, worse and worse with each additional mouthful, leaving my mouth stinging and sore for hours, after just a few crisps. I never usually leave crisps. That's why I'm shaped the way I am. But these tasted and burnt like they were poison, and it was only then that I inspected the packet, and noticed the tiny "flavour" text on the front and the changed ingredients/nutrition on the back.

How much fucking potassium were they putting in there, that it was actually painfully burning? How did that get through their consumer taste testing? How are they still on the market, and how do they still have good review scores on supermarket websites? And why do they think that someone who's buying crisps marked as "Sea Salt" flavour is that concerned about sodium reduction anyway?

I don't even think people who need to cut their sodium intake want this bollocks (not least because there's nothing on the front of the packet to attract them and make them think Popchips might fit into their lower-sodium diet).

I mean, yeah, I get it, I have to eat a low sugar, gluten-free diet. And I get annoyed when things have gratuitous gluten (like the smidgen of wheat flour that one supermarket puts into its cottage pie, but can magically do without in its shepherd's pie), or unnecessary potential cross-contamination.

BUT I don't want — and have never demanded — that gluten be removed from existing products where that would detrimentally affect the quality, texture, flavour etc. for everyone else, just so that I can eat them. That's what the Free From section is for.

Similarly, I'm glad that there are lots of sugar-free drinks available, and some low-sugar treats, but if an existing product is too high in sugar for me to eat, I'm not going to demand that it be changed to suit me. I know that many people who dislike or can't tolerate sweeteners, or consider them unhealthy, are unhappy about products removing some of their sugar and replacing it with sweetener.

I guess these changes aren't aimed at those who've actually been medically recommended a low-sodium, low-sugar, or low-whatever diet, and instead are some kind of attempt at population-level reduction of salt/sugar/etc. intake, and I don't appreciate being manipulated like that.

If I want to eat extremely salty crisps (especially since I need to keep my sodium intake up), I don't want to be tricked into having a load of disgusting, mouth-burning potassium. If I want to buy sugary fizzy pop, by all means plaster warnings all over it if you feel the need, and offer cheaper, reduced-sugar and zero-sugar alternatives, but don't secretly slip sweeteners in the established high-sugar product and pretend you're doing anyone a favour.

I'm also annoyed that Nature Valley have just now reformulated their gluten-free protein cereal bars to contain more sugar, pushing them over the level I'm happy with consuming — they were amazing, sweet and chewy and delicious but not a disaster for my blood sugar. Being a diabetic coeliac, it's useful to be able to carry a cereal bar with me in case of food access problems, and there's really no other brand of widely available GF low-enough sugar bars that fills that gap for me (except some nut bars, which can be a bit worthy TBH).

GRAARRRGGHH 😐🤣

Wow. I didn't know how pissed off I was about companies fucking about with things.