Would you eat a pickle chip? What about an octopus chip? Would you try a whiskey and haggis chip? How about a Marmite chip? Why am I even asking about chips???? Well, National Geographic recently published an article about unusual potato chip
flavors around the world which I thought was very interesting. The article is
an interview with Ali Payne, the vice president of global snacks innovation at
PepsiCo, who explains how cultural cravings affect potato chip flavor trends. She
talks about how chip flavors reflect the components of the typical foods in
each region and are therefore the best way to eat like a local when traveling.
In other words: potato chips make great souvenirs.
If you’re familiar with the Do Us a
Flavor competition (aka the thing responsible for Chicken and Waffles Lay’s) then
you’ve probably seen some pretty crazy chip flavors on the shelves. According
to Ali Payne, preferences for flavors in the program are usually similar to
local comfort food – which explains flavors like garlic bread or southern biscuits
and gravy in the U.S. and English Breakfast in the U.K.
The part of the article that I found
really interesting though was about how globalization is affecting our food – or
more specifically our chips. The article explains that since people are
becoming more and more exposed to different flavor around the world from travel
and social media, ingredients from other countries are gaining popularity. “A flavor like wasabi and ginger, which
may have once been considered exotic in the U.S., is now a hugely popular
flavor thanks to the prevalence of Japanese cuisine, and Italian
red meat is now one of the most popular flavors in China.”
I also learned from this article that the
U.S. has the most flavor diversity of any country (which makes sense
considering the whole melting pot thing) so I was inspired to go to a local
grocery store and see for myself the range of flavors that the US potato chip
market has to offer. What I gathered from looking at the aisles was that the US does in fact have a wide variety of chips…actually compared to the grocery stores that I’ve visited in Europe, we have a wide variety of everything. So, perhaps it is true that the food in our stores reflects the diversity of our nation. If anything, it definitely reflects our culture of consumerism.
In looking at a survey done in 2015, it appears that although we have a diverse variety of odd flavors, the most popular flavors among Americans tend to be more conservative, reflecting typical American dishes and usual food flavorings. This is not surprising given the information in the article. People prefer the types of flavors that they have grown up eating, and for Americans this means flavors like plain and (of course) BBQ.
