You may have seen the six new Walkers crisp flavours that have recently appeared in the supermarkets – they’re the result of a request from Walkers for members of the public to suggest new and innovative flavours to be produced to capture the imagination of the crisp-buying public. Over a million entries to the competition, which closed in March, have been whittled down to six thanks to a panel including David Walliams and Marco Pierre White, and these six are now available in supermarkets nationwide until mid-October. Consumers are asked to vote for their favourite flavour – with the creator of the winning flavour winning a cool £1m, and the five runners-up enjoying a prize of £10,000 each.
This weekend saw Chris and I having an impromptu tasting session of all six flavours to determine our favourite. In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much – I have memories of limited edition crisp flavours tasting pretty much exactly the same as existing options – but I was surprised. There’s certainly a wide variety of imaginative flavours on offer, with the six shortlisted flavours as below:
- Cheesy Beans on Toast
- Chip Shop Chicken Curry
- Hot Dog with Tomato Ketchup
- Pulled Pork in a Sticky BBQ Sauce
- Ranch Raccoon
- Sizzling Steak Fajita
Some of them were really good. Some of them were disappointing. Chris and I were pretty much in agreement at that level, but chose a different winner each. So…here are our thoughts:
Cheesy Beans on Toast: We were preparing to be disappointed with this flavour – on opening the packet they smelled just like the Walkers Tomato Ketchup crisps. Flavour-wise, though, they impressed: an accurate taste of that amazing melted cheese/tomato sauce combo that makes beans on toast so amazing. Thumbs up.
Chip Shop Chicken Curry: These were disturbingly yellow in colour, with a very strong smell that was exactly like that of a chip shop curry. That smell continued through to the flavour, although the flavouring was fairly subtle, and reminiscent of the standard Walkers chicken crisps, but with added spice.
Hot Dog with Tomato Ketchup: An incredibly sweet smell was followed up with an equally sweet and artificial flavour. Again, the flavour was pretty subtle, but the hint of cheap hot dog sausage wasn’t appealing at all!
Pulled Pork in a Sticky BBQ Sauce: We didn’t get a huge amount of pork flavour from these, bar a slightly richer meaty aftertaste. The main flavour was of the BBQ sauce, which was very sweet with a little smokiness, but sadly tasted fairly cheap.
Ranch Raccoon: Now, I can’t claim to know what raccoon tastes like, but if it tastes like these crisps, it’s fair to say that I’ll never be trying it. The smell is of sour cream, with a slightly musty meaty flavour. The flavour? Well, the sour cream came through, but alongside a meaty flavour that left a nasty aftertaste in the mouth. Not nice at all.
Sizzling Steak Fajita: The smell of classic fajita spices hit us as soon as we opened the packet, and we loved the authentic flavour, complete with a beautiful meaty taste and a hint of peppers. Surprising, as I’m not normally a fan of meaty crisps!
For me, the clear winner was the Cheesy Beans on Toast, followed (in order) by Sizzling Steak Fajita, Chip Shop Chicken Curry, Pulled Pork in a Sticky BBQ Sauce, Hot Dog with Tomato Ketchup and then Ranch Raccoon bringing up the rear. For Chris, it was the steak fajitas at the top, followed by Cheesy Beans, Pulled Pork, Chicken Curry, Hot Dog and Raccoon. I’m glad we were both in agreement about the raccoon…
Have you tried any of the new flavours yet? If so, what’s your verdict?
We received a packed of each of these new Walkers flavours free of charge, with no obligation to write a review and no obligation to write anything positive. The brand did not see this post before it was published.