Coming soon: a crisp just for the ladies
One might think crisps are genderneutral, but apparently not so – for the makers of Doritos are launching a “lady-friendly” version. Indra Nooyi, the global chief executive at Pepsico which owns the brand, says the crisps will be “low-crunch” and “not have so much flavour stick to your fingers”.
FOR most, taking the crunch out of a crisp would be an act of sacrilege. But really, it’s what women want, according to Doritos.
The company is launching what it calls a “lady-friendly” version of its corn snacks.
Indra Nooyi, global chief executive at Pepsico, which owns Doritos, says: “Although women would love to crunch crisps loudly, lick their fingers and pour crumbs from the bag into their mouth afterwards, they prefer not to do this in public.” In another nod to femininity, she announced the lowcrunch lady crisps will come in packs designed to fit into handbags.
But the female friendly bite received a somewhat salty reception from some quarters. A spokesman for the Women’s Equality Party said: “The idea of shrinking products for women, no doubt for the same price, is as old as the ad-men making these decisions.
“Companies that perpetuate these tired gender stereotypes will continue to lose out on the single biggest consumer group: women.”
However, Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative MP, welcomed the news, saying although the concept of gendered crisps was daft, quiet crisps should be celebrated. The recent Celebrity Big Brother runner-up said: “I think she [Ms Nooyi] is right that women on the whole don’t like crunching loudly, but then neither do polite men. I don’t think it’s a division between men and women, it’s a division between the fastidious and the ‘don’t cares’.
“I never lick my fingers in public or in private as I think it’s a ghastly habit. I think the idea of crisps for women is a bit daft, although I do think women are generally a bit fussier than men about these things. I am a cruncher, but I’m fussy about where I crunch.”
It is unclear whether Doritos is planning to sell the crisps in the UK but laws coming in later this year by the Advertising Standards Authority will not allow them to be marketed as ladies’ crisps.
Ms Nooyi told Freakonomics Radio: “You watch a lot of the young guys eat the chips, they love their Doritos, and they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth because they don’t want to lose that taste of the flavour.
“Are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently? Yes, we are looking at it, and we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon.
“For women it’s low-crunch, the full taste profile, not have so much of the flavour stick to the fingers and how can you put it in a purse? Because women love to carry a snack in their purse.”
Women-only carriages on trains went a long time ago, and gender politics are even threatening single-sex lavatories. But the American giant Pepsico, maker of Doritos and other such products, thinks there is a market for female-friendly snacks that don’t make too loud a noise. Is there a ladylike way of eating crisps, or isn’t the crunch part of the experience and, indeed, the essential quality? More to the point, in our gender-fluid world, should women not feel aggrieved that they are to be denied the fun of getting their fingers covered in grease and drawing attention to their snacking habits?
There is another answer, of course: don’t eat these snacks in public. Or at all.