Deep Ridged crisps from Walkers – ‘twice as deep for epic satisfaction’, or as Anne Robinson described them on BBC Watchdog, ‘ridges twice as deep, packets half empty’. Do you get more air than crisps in your bags?
They’re calling it #crispgate on Twitter, which describes the phenomenon of a handful of crisps in large packets of Walkers’ new Deep Ridged crisps.
Watchdog viewers sent in pictures of multi-pack bags, with some apparently having as few as seven crisps inside. And when the Watchdog team counted a collection of bags themselves, they found an average of 13 crisps (minus bits).
I decided to count some myself – as can be seen in the picture below. I bought a multi-pack of flame-grilled steak flavour Deep Ridged crisps, and counted the crisps pack by pack. Lo and behold I also counted an average of 13 crisps in a bag (minus little bits). In my very small unscientific test, the fewest I found was 11, and the most 15.
I’m not necessarily sure whether 13 crisps is bad for a multi-pack bag, but the bags certainly look pretty empty – around two thirds is air. I’m sure other types of crisps suffer from the same phenomenon, with Debby (@dorydebby) sharing her pack of Discos with us on Twitter – the pack contained 14 crisps.
‘Low bag fill’ in multi-pack crisps
According to Walkers, its Deep Ridged packs look emptier due to slightly bigger bags. It explained to Watchdog that the crisps’ deeper ridges make them more susceptible to breakages. To limit those breakages, Walkers puts them in slightly larger packs with some cushioning to protect them, which may give the impression of ‘low bag fill’. It added that there are 28g of crisps in each multi-pack bag, which is apparently higher than the average amount.
From the packs I bought, it doesn’t look like the extra cushioning works too well – I was lucky to find five undamaged whole crisps in a bag, with most snapped in half or worse. Still, I guess that comes with the territory when you’re eating crisps.
The other thing is that multi-pack bags are so much smaller than those sold separately (I’m sure it’s true for most makes). A normal bag of Deep Ridged is 50g (around 25 crisps), compared to the multi-pack bag’s 28g. I’m might be naive, but I’d expect them to be closer in size to the bags sold separately.
Of course, on a health level, it’s better to eat fewer crisps or none at all. But if you’re expecting a plump bag to be full to the brim with crisps, think again. Have you bought crisps only to find them suffering from ‘low bag fill’?
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