Crisps for Breakfast: Walkers Taste Test [1]

Marketing is not Walkers' strong point. It started about 1000 years ago when they hired Lineker, and it was funny for a while, but now it's stagnating. I am of the opinion that their current campaign is absolute genius. Everyone has an opinion on Walkers crisp flavours or the controversial colour of their cheese and onion and salt and vinegar bags, so their decision to get the public involved in picking their new flavour was always going to go down well.

Another popular association with Walkers is the "bag size:crisp volume" ratio. With this latest burst of popularity, Walkers have jumped on the opportunity to put more crisps in the bag (one can only speculate) temporarily to improve their reputation in this area, then slowly decrease the amount back to normal! Very clever.

I'm relatively indifferent to which flavour finally wins the "election" as I don't eat a lot of crisps, but some of the flavours are so un-crisp-like that I wondered how they were going to achieve it. As soon as I saw the list, I thought that Onion Bhaji would work the best; it's a simple flavour and it's food on a similar format to crisps, but nevertheless I've decided to go all food crit and try them all (as close as I can get to) impartially.

The Flavours

Today, I will be trying three of the new flavours—I don't think I can eat six packets of crisps in a sitting. Those flavours are "Builder's Breakfast", "Cajun Squirrel" and "Fish & Chips". As a pertinent side note, all of the new flavours are suitable for vegetarians. Thanks Walkers!

Builder's Breakfast

One of the first things I noticed about these flavours is that some of them are liable to be relatively complex. Walkers get a certain amount of poetic licence with their flavours (I hope no real cheese tastes like the one in their Cheese & Onion), but mixing lots of flavours into a crisp is may not end well! Builder's Breakfast is described as

Combining the mouth-watering flavours of bacon, buttered toast, eggs and tomato sauce

but the initial smell leads you straight down the Smoky Bacon path.

Something I've noticed about all of these flavours is that it takes a little while to get any discernible flavour from them, and then it's mostly in the aftertaste. I thought Walkers did very well in cramming all of the different flavours into this one (with the exception of tomato sauce, which I missed out on). You taste the bacon whilst it's in your mouth, followed by the egg and bread in the after taste. They're also nice and crispy, which Charlotte says reminds her of toast!

Cajun Squirrel

The Cajun Squirrel flavour smelled incredibly meaty and spicy—very similar to Walkers Lamb and Mint. At first, they taste very meaty, which soon dissipates to a combination of spices—over-powered by mint. These are far too strong for my liking, and there's way too much mint in there!

Fish & Chips

Walkers describe them as

Fish and Chips flavour crisps with a vinegary hint

and you can definitely smell the fish in them. To me, they smell just like The Black Cross favourite Smiths Scampi Fries, but that's where the similarities end.

First impressions of the taste is that they're incredibly unpleasant. Charlotte described them as "cat food" and proceeded to offer them to Amelie. In the interest of objectivity, I worked through it and gave them a chance. Walkers have definitely got the fish and vinegar in there, with a subtle aftertaste of chip shop batter that was quite a pleasant surprise. Not because it tasted very nice, but the attention to detail was appreciated!

One thing I was quite disappointed about is I was expecting the authentic "chip shop" smell. I don't like chips and I don't eat fish, but I love that smell and it was definitely missing from this flavour. They've definitely worked the archetypal chip shop grease in there, though! They're definitely the weakest of this group.

Verdict

If you can't choose between these three flavours, I would definitely recommend Builder's Breakfast. A very pleasant and subtle mix of flavours, impressively only losing out on one of the listed flavours (which was apparently there - Charlotte says so!). Next up; "Crispy Duck & Hoisin", "Chilli & Chocolate" and "Onion Bhaji".