PRAWN COCKTAIL ONLY REALLY SELLS IN THE UK AND IRELAND, WHILE BACON IS FOUND IN MOST PLACES EXCEPT BELGIUM
email when asked what these spices are, but there are clues on its packets.
Swiss Grilled Cheese Lay’s available in Pakistan have peppercorns and chilli pictured on the front. Spanish Tomato Tango Lay’s in India have pictures of chilli oil and cinnamon sticks. Even when customers crave a taste of the world, crisps are catered to local appetites.
It turns out there is one other crucial step in the process of creating a new flavour. With a mouth stuffed full of pepper in Pat’s kitchen, I ask: “But how do you do it? How do you turn this dish into a powder?”
That’s when I discover that they don’t. “We partner up with these big global flavour houses, seasoning houses,” Emma says, giving no names. When I get home and Google “seasoning house”, all it throws up is the title of a 2013 British horror film about an orphan who murders soldiers.
IHEAR about seasoning houses again in Mechelen, Belgium, which is home to a 27-year-old Pringles factory that smells like a chip shop. It runs all day, every day, even at Christmas, and produces 100 000 tons of Pringles annually.
“We only stop the line on a need basis,” plant director Johan van Batenburg says over a dramatically sound-tracked promotional video.
There are six lines in the plant; the paprika line is covered in a thin layer of orange dust. I watch rolled dough that smells like pasta being cut into Pringles’ signature shape, the hyperbolic paraboloid. The chips are fried in a machine so hot that humidity is visible in the air. They move so quickly under a waterfall of seasoning that they become a blur.
Most of the crisps here are seasoned with original or sour cream and onion flavours – the top two “in almost all markets”.
In Europe, Pringles has 34 active flavours in seven can sizes (one of which is called “David” for reasons no one can explain). Not all of these flavours are available in every European country – prawn cocktail only really sells in the UK and Ireland, while bacon is found in most places except Belgium, the Netherlands and strongholds of vegetarianism Austria, Denmark and Sweden.
Salt and vinegar has spread everywhere except Norway and Italy.
“They don’t have the habit of doing vinegar on their crisps; they just eat them plain with salt,” says Julie Merzougui, lead food designer at Kellanova – formerly Kellogg’s – Pringles’ parent company.
Like Lay’s, Pringles starts with data – in Asia, the company uses a Tinder-like tool with 200 consumers at a time, asking them to swipe left or right on potential flavours. Kellanova also uses AI, which Julie says can predict trends up to 10 years in advance.
Things aren’t always this sophisticated though – both Lay’s and Pringles also look at what’s on the shelves in countries they want to break into, copying flavours and identifying gaps to fill.
Yet just because the world wants a flavour doesn’t mean it’s made. Sometimes, logistics get in the way: the perfectly blended seasoning might clog the machines or create too much dust, causing sneezing fits in the factory.
Belgian legislation mandates that every seasoning has to be put through a dust explosion test – it is set alight in controlled conditions to ensure it won’t blow up.
Inside the plant, Johan shows me giant cubeshaped bags of seasonings that arrive ready to be cascaded on to the crisps. At the end of his video presentation, he made a passing comment that rocked my world.
We were talking about other crisp companies, big name competitors.
“In essence,” he said, “they’re using the same seasoning houses we do.”
ILEAVE Belgium with the names of three seasoning houses Pringles work with. At home, I discover that their websites are obscure – they speak of flavours and trends, but don’t even mention Pringles. I haven’t so much as stumbled upon a conspiracy as been invited into it.
After two months’ cajoling by the Pringles team, two representatives from a seasoning house agree to speak – but only on the condition of total anonymity, in line with their contractual obligations.
“It’s quite secretive,” food scientist Reuben admits via Zoom.
“Everyone has their own crown jewels that they protect.”
As a marketer, Peggy has always found the company’s secrecy “strange”.
“It’s always been a bit of a puzzle to me … I was like, ‘Why aren’t we shouting about this?’ But I was told, ‘Oh, no, we have to keep it very quiet.’”
This is because – just as Johan hinted in Belgium – the seasoning house Reuben and Peggy work for provides flavours for Pringles and Lay’s, as well as other brands. When asked whether their clients know, Reuben says, “They do and they don’t.”
“It’s just not really talked about,” Peggy
adds. However, this doesn’t mean that a Salt & Vinegar Pringle is flavoured with the same seasoning as a Salt & Vinegar Lay’s. In fact, the seasoning house is strictly siloed to guarantee exclusivity.
How exactly do they come up with their formulations; how do you reduce a national dish to a powder? Let’s say a client comes to Reuben wanting a tagine crisp.
First, Reuben identifies the “gold standard” tagine. Depending on the intended market, this isn’t always about authenticity – when a client requested a katsu curry flavour, Reuben ordered from the restaurant chain Wagamama because market data told him British consumers like their take on the dish best.
After identifying the key ingredients, Reuben can’t simply copy them in powdered form. Onions in a tagine have been slow-cooked, for example, so onion powder alone doesn’t work.
And powdered lamb is out – many meat-flavoured crisps are vegetarian. Some crisps contain vegetable proteins that have been hydrolysed (broken down into their components) to produce a meat-like taste.
Other times, MSG or a flavour enhancer known as “Disodium 5’-ribonucleotides” is added to create an umami taste. A lab of “flavour chemists” create the flavour compounds that Reuben mixes into seasonings. Because textures can’t be recreated on a crisp – “if you look at a tagine, it’s saucy, it’s wet, it’s warm” – Reuben uses different “sensates”, compounds that provoke heating, tingling, cooling or salivating sensations. Conventional ingredients such as salt and spices are also used. Reuben describes his work as part science and part art, likening an unseasoned Pringle to a blank canvas on which he paints. “You have your base notes, which will be your salt and your sugar,” he says. “And then you start layering that with different types of molecules and aroma chemicals, or the actual flavours in liquid or encapsulated formats.” Vinegar often can’t be sprayed as a liquid; because its flashpoint is below the boiling point of water, the flavour would evaporate when cooked on a crisp. Instead, vinegar is often crystallised. It can take Reuben’s team 12 attempts going back and forth with clients to get a flavour exactly right; then pre-launch consumer feedback must be factored in. Pringles’ product developer Lucia Sudjalim, who’s responsible for Africa, Australia, Asia and the Middle East, says her market is very varied.
“Even within south-east Asia, there are 10 countries, and between the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia – they all have different taste preferences,” she says.
IF YOU were to simplify how the globe looks through the eyes of a potato crisp, the whole thing is divided down the middle – and one side is labelled “cheese” and the other “fish”. The top-selling Walkers in the UK are cheese and onion flavour, while in Vietnam and Thailand they’re crab and seaweed. Reuben says “fish does not translate on to a snack” for consumers in most other parts of the world.
The most experimental country is
China, where Lay’s have released beer flavour and rose petal crisps, as well as “sensorial” ranges that numb, cool and fizz.
Tom says this experimentation is driven by the country’s love of e-commerce, with shopping websites integrated into social media.
“Because of that, you have products that trend and bubble up very, very fast.” Emma puts it another way: “If you’ve got 1,4 billion people, someone’s bound to like it.”
Lucia considers Korea to be “very adventurous” – cola, butter caramel and yoghurt flavours are available there. “Don’t frown,” she insists when I react to the last one. “It’s not bad!”
“Europe is simply not ready for sweet food crisps,” says Pringles designer Julie. And while people around the globe think they like spicy food, Mexico is the only country that really does, so chilli Doritos have to be made spicier there.
There are three different paprika Pringles in Germany – sweet, classic and grilled. Why is the flavour so beloved?
“It’s historical,” Peggy says. “People who’ve moved over from other parts of Europe into Germany have brought their paprika from eastern Europe and Hungary. They use it a lot in their cooking, and there’s been migration through to Germany.”
Despite our differences, globalisation is bringing rapid change. While Indian customers might have historically wanted cinnamon in their Spanish Tomato Tango crisps, Lucia says Japanese customers want London Style Fish & Chips Pringles to be authentic; they want to be reminded of their travels.
Pringles launched a travel-inspired Passport Flavours range in 2020. Now Japanese customers can munch on New York Style Cheeseburger flavour, while Brits can try Greek Style Tzatziki.
In Thailand, I also saw chilli squid, grilled prawns and seafood sauce flavours, crisps South Africa still doesn’t seem ready for.
What about the lasagne? How did it end up in Thailand and not in Italy? Tom says crucially, the expectations of what lasagne should taste like are not as high for a Thai consumer as an Italian.
“An Italian would think: how can a crisp taste of authentic mother’s lasagne?” Tom says.
Peggy puts it another way: “They’d just think it was horrendous if you put something like lasagne on a potato chip!”