Spuds you'll like

In the Eighties, prawn cocktail flavour was the height of sophistication. But now crisps have been reinvented as hand-cooked potato chips, and the market for them is huge. Sybil Kapoor picks the best of the crop

Between now and January, there'll be no escape now from that rustle and crunch. Potato crisps get everywhere – piled high in bowls at drinks parties and ground into carpets. And in the world of adult snack foods, the subject of crisps is becoming ever more sophisticated and complicated. In the last year, at least two new "hand-cooked potato chip" brands (Tyrrells, and Jack and Ollies) have been launched, and Duchy Originals has just introduced crisps with a pedigree: "hand-fried" from the Home Farm at Highgrove using organic Maris Piper potato, and at a very posh price. Walkers has introduced Sensations in a bid to go upmarket. Meanwhile the number of clamorous new flavours seems to have reached a crescendo.

This season's hosts won't be able to get away with scattering the ready salted around, but should know their Burts from their Kettle, and their cream cheese and pink peppercorn from their traditional cheddar chips. All the while, manufacturers are sharpening their knives to carve out an even bigger slice of the £2.2bn adult premium snack market.

Not all crisps are equal, according to Andrew Carpenter, senior buyer manager for crisps, snacks and nuts at Tesco. "It all depends on the type of potato used and how it is cooked," he says. The crisps we grew up on, such as Smith's or Walkers, are usually very finely sliced then blanched in hot water before being fried in huge batches. They have a uniform look, colour and, according to some, lack of taste, throughout the year. "Traditional hand-cooked crisps use potatoes that have a higher sugar content," explains Carpenter. "It is this that gives them more flavour and makes them harden up more when they are fried, which makes them better suited to the adult market."

A potato, being a practical tuber and not intent on becoming a crisp, slowly converts its starch to sugar once it has been lifted, no doubt in a bid to burst into life at the first opportunity. Consequently, no one batch of spuds is ever the same as the next in the chip fryer. The later the season, the more sugar there is, the greater the tendency to caramelise and turn the crisps darker. Each batch has to be test fried before it is cooked in slightly larger quantities. Hand-cooked crisp manufacturers have to move from one potato variety to another throughout the year and often use this as a selling point against more processed crisps. Tyrrells, who are also potato farmers, actually list the potato variety on the back of their packets.

"Potato chip" is American for "crisp", and the term arrived here when Kettle came over and started production in Norwich in 1989. Kettle opened the gates to confusing terminology, fancy names and sophisticated flavours, such as balsamic vinegar, and Cheddar cheese. Until then the only alternative to conventional crisps as a grown-up party snack was salted peanuts, or, if you were lucky, Twiglets. Instead of the mass-produced, slightly synthetic tasting papery crisps, Kettle were slices of full-bodied f crunchy potatoes with recognisable ingredients rather than e numbers listed on the packet.

Cameron Healy, the founder and joint owner of Kettle, comes from the natural food movement that took place in the US in the Seventies. He started with nuts, then developed the concept of cooking potatoes in small batches in sunflower oil in Oregon in 1982, at around the same time as the Cape Cod Potato Chip company started on the East Coast.

Since then, even at the more rarefied end of the market, competition is rampant and few are prepared to reveal much about their product. Andrew Carpenter, for example, is extremely secretive about Tesco's choice of potato varieties for their Finest crisp range, which was launched in 1999.

We're paying more for recherché flavours and named potatoes, and we're also eating a lot more crisps as a nation. According to British Potato Council figures from 10 years ago, Britain grew some 6,267,000 tonnes of potatoes, 9.5 per cent of which were turned into crisps. Last year we turned 11 per cent of the 5,993,000-tonne potato harvest into crisps.

Our home-grown answers to Kettle have also started coming thick and fast. Richard Burt, the founder of the much-admired Corbridge Larder in Northumberland, was the first. He'd found it hard to source good hand-fried crisps when he ran the deli, and, after selling the business, decided to produce them himself.

In 1994 he set up Burts, Britain's smallest crisp company. His marketing strategy was brilliant: transparent "designer" packets with the individual fryer's name on the packet and a friendly West Country approach, which was perfect for the delis and small shops he was targeting.

Others kept their eye on Burts and – if rumours are to be believed – when the company was put on the market last year, everyone dived in and had a good nosy around before setting up their own rival companies. I should add that the entire crisp industry appears to be cloaked in secrecy and crackles with innuendos of stolen ideas.

However, as Josh Layish, joint managing director of Kettle, says: "It's inevitable that a brand like Kettle chips which invents the category will have imitators, but there is loads of scope for further product development." Forest Products, a jam and chutney company, who had long tried to work in collaboration with Burts, openly admit that the refusal of their bid acted as a spur to create their Jack and Ollies hand-cooked chips. Tyrrells, meanwhile, had already decided to set up a crisp factory. According to Ian Parkinson, production manager: "We were having a rough time as potato farmers and needed to diversify."

Layish sees the recent rise of small, quality companies as being a force for good. Many are anxious however about the arrival of a large player in the form of Walkers, whose new Sensations range is not hand cooked but appears to be trying to jump on the premium crisp bandwagon at a lower price. Walkers were unforthcoming about the history and manufacturing methods of their Sensations range and their Gary Lineker-influenced, Mr-Nice-Guy image appears to mask a tougher approach to manufacturing than the designer crisp makers they appear to be trying to emulate.

I was directed to the website which was aimed at children. But a look at the ingredients listed on the back of the packet shows that Sensations are fried in vegetable oil whereas most others use sunflower oil, and that some of the flavoured crisps include MSG – monosodium glutamate, an artificial flavour enhancer – as an ingredient. This is a cheap and easy way of adding flavour, despite the fact that many people can suffer nasty physical side effects from ingesting it. Walkers commented: "We appreciate that certain people can be adversely affected by monosodium glutamate. If it is used in the manufacture of a certain product, then we ensure that it is listed separately in the ingredients declaration on the packet. This is in line with all EU rules and regulations." None of the other upmarket potato chips shown here contain it, however.

Given Britain's reputation for trying any new snack, however bizarre, no crisp manufacturer worth their salt can content themselves with selling plain crisps when they could be exploiting marketing opportunities with product differentiation. Not content with hot chilli lemon flavour? How about Jersey Royal crisps or Red Russet potatoes. Whatever the variety of potato, the crisps will probably taste the same, but have different degrees of crunch, colour, shape and size. You can even change your crisps with the seasons – hence the appearance of Blue Stilton and Port, or Bloody Mary. And if the packet has the word flavour on the contents it means it's not made with the real ingredients.

Everyone is trying to develop their own unique-tasting crisps. Jack and Ollies, for example, who have been making potato chips for only four months, have created an intense-tasting pesto flavour. Perhaps the most innovative come from Hot Juan's, who created Hot Juan's Chilli crisps five months ago as a means of selling their ground-dried habenero and chipotle chillies. Publicans love them. Marks & Spencer have opted for seasonal potato varieties instead, thus Jersey Royals are now giving way to Red Duke of York, which will then be followed by King Edwards.

Organic potatoes are also proving a popular new growth area for premium crisps. Kettle, for example, has found that their organic sales have increased by 30 per cent this year. The future of hand-cooked chips looks bright.

Tesco Finest Lightly Salted Traditional Handcooked Crisps

What it says on the packet: "A light salt seasoning gives a refined, distinctive taste to these hand cooked crunchy crisps made from premium potatoes." £1.75 for 150g.

Crunch points: "Good. Crispy, crunchy, like a crisp should be and not too thick"; "light and thin with much more of a natural potato taste". Youngest children: "The nicest crisp and I like its colour".

Other flavours: Oak Smoked Barbecue Flavour, Fragrant Thai Herbs, Mozzarella & Toasted Red Onion, Cream Cheese and Cracked Pink Peppercorn, and Sun dried Tomato, Garlic & Basil Flavour.

Marks & Spencer Lightly Salted Handcooked Crisps (Jersey Royals)

What it says on the packet: "Made by using a carefully selected variety of potato to give its characteristic colour and crunchy texture." Cooked in sunflower oil. £1.99 for 120g. Soon to be replaced by the autumn crop of Red Duke of York (£1.59 for 150g).

Crunch points: "Oil tasted old – it almost over-powered the taste of the potato – and the frying looked uneven as the colour ranged from pale to dark golden"; "looked nice but tasted of rancid fat". Smaller children's comments: "not very pretty".

Kettle Organics Lightly Salted

What it says on the packet: "Gourmet crisps made from selected organically grown potatoes, hand cooked in organic sunflower oil." Lots of information about how the potatoes are grown organically in Norfolk ... sliced directly into a simmering vessel of pure organically produced sunflower oil. £1.65 for 120g.

Crunch points: "Quite hard and a bit greasy"; "nice crunch and good flavour. I love them."

Other flavours: Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar, Salsa with Mesquite, Sea Salt, Rosemary and Garlic, Organics Sea Salt with Crushed Black Peppercorns, and Jersey Royals.

Waitrose Organic Oven Baked Potato Chips

What it says on the packet: "Organically grown potatoes sliced, slowly oven baked and lightly seasoned with organic olive oil and sea salt (less than 5 per cent fat)". £2.09 for 115g.

Crunch points: "A great dry crisp with a good, potato flavour and crisp, dry, not too greasy textures"; "very dry-tasting and looking – are they low fat?" Children found them "dry not crisp".

Cape Cod Golden Russet Potato Chips Lightly Salted

What it says on the packet: Chapter and verse on the discovery of russet potatoes and how they are cooked chez Cape Cod Potato Chip company in vegetable oil in very small batches. Available in selected Waitrose. £2.09 for 150g.

Crunch points: "The nicest of the plain salted crisps, please can I take some home"; "excellent flavour, good crispiness and most natural looking". Children: "not nice and not quite enough salt"; "quite hard but quite good".

Smiths Salt'n'Shake Crisps

What it says on the packet: "Frank Smith sold Britain's first crisps to the pubs of Cricklewood. The salt-cellars he provided vanished as fast as the crisps. The little blue twist of salt was his ingenious solution." 16p for 27g. Cooked in vegetable oil; the salt comes in sachets.

Crunch points: "Pretty good. Light, crispy, thin crisps";

"Plain (standard!), thin and light. A bit soft but nice." The children thought them "very plain".

Hot Juan's Pan Fried Jacket Potato Chipotle Hot'n'Smokey Chilli Crisps

What it says on the packet: No claims made but ingredients are potatoes, sunflower oil, paprika, garlic, black pepper, salt, cumin, basil, chipotle chilli. Publicans are given a sign to place in the gents which says: "WARMING [sic] Hot Juan's Habanero Crisps. If you have handled our product be careful handling yours!" For more information, call 01256 880779.

Crunch points: "Gorgeous taste of chilli and salt on crunchy crisps. Where can I get them?"; "I liked the first - but handle with care, but the second was far too hot in the after-taste." Oldest child: "a really tasty crisp". Smaller children didn't like it.

Walkers Sensations Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper Flavour Crisps

What it says on the packet: "A new taste experience," "specially prepared crunchier crisps in a range of indulgent flavours". Fulsomely describes how fine and coarsely ground black pepper from India recreate that freshly milled aroma, with "natural" sea salt lifted by a hint of lemon juice. £1.29 for 150g

Crunch points: "Artificial tasting with not much taste of pepper"; "slightly unpleasant after-taste"; "the best aroma, salt, grease combo and looks good. More please."

Other flavours: Oven Roasted Chicken and Thyme (contains MSG), Thai Sweet Chilli (contains MSG), Four Cheese and Red Onion.

Tyrrells Hand Fried Potato Chips Lightly Sea Salted

What it says on the packet: Too much to repeat here, but how they are the only UK chip maker to grow their own potatoes (in Herefordshire) and make them into what they regard as superb chips. "All natural, no artificial or GM products are used." Cooked in sunflower oil. £1.85 for 200g, for local stockists, call 01568 720244.

Crunch points: "Pleasant taste with a nice, crunchy texture"; "flavour would be improved by more salt, otherwise quite a good crunchy crisp".

Other flavours: Chilli & Lemon, Traditional Cheddar Cheese, Sea Salt & Black Pepper

Burts Hand Fried Potato Chips Lightly Salted

What it says on the packet: "We are proud of what we do and hope you will enjoy with us the best of the west." "Our chips are rustic, crunchy and the ultimate in flavour." Fried in sunflower oil in Devon. £1.99 for 200g. Available from selected Waitrose stores and Selfridges. For suppliers call 01548 852220.

Crunch points: "A bit commercial - part of the crowd of grease, blandness, etc"; "slightly greasy, disappointing flavour and not terribly crunchy"; "not bad, but not quite crisp enough."

Other flavours: Bloody Mary, No Salt, Salt and Black Pepper, Hot Chilli Lemon and Mature Cheddar

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Cracked Black Pepper Olive Oil Crisps

What it says on the packet: "Made from thick slices of specially selected potatoes, these tasty gourmet crisps are batch-cooked to a perfect golden brown." Made from russet potatoes. £1.35 for 100g.

Crunch points: "Too thick for a crisp but looked really nice and tasted peppery"; "good fried potato flavour and inviting texture. Pepper made it quite moreish." Children's comments: "peppery but I like it" and "very nice".

Other flavours: Sage, Onion & Thyme Traditional Pan Fried Crisps

McCoy's Rock Salt – Flavour Ridge Cut Potato Chips

What it says on the packet: "New improved – The Real McCoy's – Accept no Imitations" and "If you thought McCoy's thick potato chips couldn't get any better, think again. McCoy's are cooked using a unique recipe making our chunky chips even fresher and crunchier." Cooked in vegetable oil. 39p for 50g.

Crunch points: "Good, salty taste with very nice crinkle-cut texture that dissolves in the mouth well"; "slightly greasy on the lips. Fairly tasteless and flat-tasting". Smaller children thought they were really pretty and appealing.