I must have been 8 or 9 when I had my first Walkers crisp and remember seeing this new name on boxes on the floor of my local sweet come toy shop. I remember thinking at first “who is this completely unheard of brand” because up until then the market leaders were Golden Wonder and Smiths. I then bought my first ever pack of Walkers (cheese and onion of course, is there any other flavour?) and I was completely won over. This unheard of brand had completely sussed how to make crisps. They were not only tasty but the texture of the crisps was more satisfying and not so rigid and oily as the other brands.
As I got older I did venture onto other flavours, bacon crisps were always a nice combination with an egg sandwich but cheese and onion are where my loyalties lie! So I couldn’t be happier that Walkers have just announced that they are now going to use home grown British ingredients for their crisps. Not only is this good for the British economy but buying ingredients closer to home means they have better controls over what they are buying. Just look at the recent horse meat scandal, it’s no wonder the food chain gets contaminated when we source our food from all over the globe and therefore have less control over what goes on. British farmers do a sterling job and we need to keep them going so I hope more food manufacturers follow Walkers lead here. I picked up a tin of strawberries the other day and they said they were made in China, what’s the world coming to when we need to send a strawberry half way around the world? Buying British also cuts down on fuel costs and on carbon emissions, it’s a win win situation.
The other brilliant thing about the new British ingredients is that Chefs will be adding real cheese, pork, tomatoes, chicken etc to the crisps rather than chemical ingredients and monosodium glutamate. As a mother I’d much rather feed my children natural ingredients and try and avoid artificial ones where I can. As Walkers hold 47% of the crisp market I’m glad that they are being pioneering in this way.
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