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This week Frito Lay launched an effort to pretend they are a local company.
People responded as you might expect but I think missing a great opportunity. While many pointed out the flaw in Frito Lay’s argument no one talked about the many local chip companies that do exist.
This could be the chip heard around the world in the battle to get people to understand the importance of eating locally. Too often people feel like eating healthy (or locally or organically or sustainably) means martyrdom but that’s not true. There is a wonderful world of local potato chips out there just waiting for you to discover. What’s your favorite local chip maker?
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I’ve lived all over the country and try to buy the local chips wherever I may be living. It would be difficult for me to pick one as the best but some of the locals I like/have liked include:
Stateline (CT/MA area)
Granite State (NH)
Utz (NY/NJ)
Tom’s (throughout the South and Midwest)
Another example is the store brands for most of the supermarket chains as they (I believe) tend to use local chip makers.
According to NY Potato Growers Assn:
NY potato producers grow chips for Cape Cod, Wise, Utz, Herr’s, Terrell’s and other regional potato chip companies. Ask your grocer to stock chips from locally grown farmers for the best tasting, freshest snacks.
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New York has local potato chip producers who grow their own potatoes and make them into chips. (BUBBA’S CHIPS, Avoca, NY and North Fork Long Island Potato Chips, Mattituck, NY)
Forgot Wise, which aren’t bad. My chip of choice in NYC. But they can’t cut Krunchers, unless they’ve done something new since the mid-80s.
Utz is a popular brand in the Baltimore area. They do a good job of promoting their products with advertising and securing good placement on the grocery and convenience store shelves.
I live in NW Oregon, and we have Kettle Chips in Salem, Oregon and Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips in Auburn, Washington. Each makes many varieties, and they’re far fresher than Frito Lay products if you live in the Pac NW.
Been off potato chips since we found Stacy’s Pita Chips.
Just a hint of sea salt and crunchy as all get out.
When in the Chicago area, Jay’s, or even better their spin-off brand Krunchers, are a must, if one must.
Never had a better chip.
Zapp’s from Gramercy, Louisiana.
http://www.zapps.com/cgi-bin/zapps/index.html
Local Subway restaurants used to carry them and then one day the didn’t anymore. I am betting those Frito Lay people put the kabosh on it. They also have a product called Vickie’s that pretends it is not Frito Lay that replaced the Zapp’s.
It doesn’t matter so much because I never go to subway anymore.
I used to enjoy State-Line in CT? And Charles Chips?
Gibbles, made in PA, and sometimes available in CT, MA, and elsewhere. Am in VA this week and found some. They’re cooked in lard, and delicious, but not politically correct in this Age of Canola Oil. I hate canola oil.
Ditto on the Zapps.
There’s a good spanish restaurant in Brooklyn named Sancho’s that cooks them up fresh and free with your meal.
I grew up on Utz, which hails from Hanover, PA. which are the best potato chips. But I prefer Snyder’s (also in Hanover) pretzels. (When I used to eat that stuff.)
But do you know where the frying oil is from? I’ll bet it’s not local. For that matter, who says the potatoes are local to the potato chip maker? Just because the distance between the food processor and the grocery store is short doesn’t mean the chips are local…..much less a good diet choice.
Too much salt and fat, and possibly GM fat: soy and even canola oil are likely to be GM. In addition, potatoes are being genetically modified with various traits to improve resistance to blight, or herbicide, or to modify the starch content.
Found on the internet:
”Studies conducted in Russia in 1998 – and suppressed by the biotech industry for eight years – have finally been uncovered, showing that rats fed GMO potatoes developed tumors.” Link.
There is other research showing poor results from feeding GM foods to livestock.
As Toby Wollin pointed out in NY a lot of the chip companies grow their own potatoes
here’s the
/trivia.htm”>link
UTZ has been working with Penn State to develop greater opportunities for local potato growers.
Also Utz does not use genetically modified potatoes in fact most commercial users of potatoes have rejected the gm potato for fear of public backlash
When in the DC area, try Route 11 Chips. Don’t know if they have any politically correct features, but they sure taste good.