July 2020 – Museum of Crisps

US first: Barbecue flavour crisps

The first flavoured crisps in the United States, barbecue flavour, were being manufactured and sold by 1954. Herr’s and Ley’s both produced crisps with that flavour in the 1950s. It was the only flavour available in the United States other than the conventional salted chip until the introduction of Sour Cream & Onion in theContinue reading “US first: Barbecue flavour crisps”

British Society of Flavourists

For the first 130 years after the creation of the crisp, the only flavours were salted or unsalted. Then, in the 1950s, crisp manufacturers began to invent ways to add flavoru, and cheese & onion, salt & vinegar and barbecue flavour crisps were launched in the UK and USA. By 1970, the public’s taste forContinue reading “British Society of Flavourists”

Ready Salted

In 1960, Golden Wonder became the first company to sell crisps with the salt already sprinkled over them. Up until then, all plain crisps had been provided with a small sachet of salt.

Salt & Vinegar

By 1934, 200 million packets of crisps were sold in Britain each year, 95 percent of which were manufactured by Smith’s. Smiths was initially slow to join the flavour revolution, but eventually brought out a salt ‘n’ vinegar flavoured crisp, tested first by its Geordie subsidiary Tudor, and launched nationally in 1967. Though they didContinue reading “Salt & Vinegar”

First flavour: Cheese & Onion

The first flavoured crisp was Cheese & Onion. Ireland’s Tayto Company has probably the best claim to being first to launch cheese & onion into the crisp market. Joe “Spud” Murphy, founder of Tayto, set out to add flavour to crisps in 1954, launching cheese & onion soon afterwards. The flavoured crisps were an immediateContinue reading “First flavour: Cheese & Onion”

First commercial crisp: Salt ’n’ Shake

The first company to sell crisps commercially was The Smiths Potato Crisps Company Ltd, founded in Cricklewood, London in 1920 by Frank Smith and Jim Viney. They provided a twist of salt with their crisps, which were sold in London in greaseproof paper bags. Originally branded as Salt ’n’ Shake crisps, plain crisps with optionalContinue reading “First commercial crisp: Salt ’n’ Shake”

The original crisp: homemade ready salted

The first known reference to a food similar to the modern potato chip was in a recipe book, The Cook’s Oracle, by William Kitchiner, published in 1817. The recipe (number 104) is called “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings”. Sprinkled with “a very little salt”, they are the first known ready-salted crisps. Kitchiner’s book wasContinue reading “The original crisp: homemade ready salted”