This is a brand of potato chips not commonly seen in Singapore. Imported from New Zealand, the packaging looks attractive with the shiny gold label and matte printing which gives you a feeling of quality when you handle it.
Looks sure is important for first impression, but it is the taste that will keep customers coming back. Successful potato chips have a good combination of both qualities; attractive packaging to build up customer base and superior taste to keep customers coming back for more. Kinda makes me think about relationship and why some attractive girls keep changing boyfriends. Cause they have the looks to keep attracting new guys and nothing much else to keep the relationship going, hahaha. My ex have a perfect combination of both but...........that will be another story for another day.The flavour of this bag of chips is basil pesto which is some kind of herbs. Not the usual sour cream, BBQ or salted flavour which is more commonly seen in other brands. Good effort for trying to be distinct in the market saturated by copy cats. Most of the more distinguished potato chip brands in the market have a few of such unique flavours that others do not have. I myself started having fetish for tomato flavoured potato chips recently. Maybe someone should try making tomato chips or something.
On the left shows the nutrition information for the 150 grams bag of potato chips. I noticed that the sodium level is quite low at 140 mg, most chips I eat have levels between 200mg to 500mg so this should be good news for anti-sodium freaks. There is an Internet url for their company's website which I explored as I was curious about what other flavours they have. I clicked on the potato chips section in the website and was faced with a Microsoft .Net error............In this modern age of Internet and new media, they could have gained so much more by just simply maintaining their website. It's like free advertising when people buy their products and refer to their website for more information. Yet there are many companies which still have such downtimes in their sites. Customers don't always check back again or give you a second chance.
A side-by-side comparison of the packet with a sheet of standard A4 size paper.
Due to the interest in melamine contamination in milk these days, people will most probably check the ingredients list for any mention of milk in the product. There were some melamine related news regarding milk from New Zealand but mostly the contamination center on China milk products so this should be quite safe.There seems to be no MSG in the ingredients as well. Other than that, nothing much on the packaging. Time to taste the chips.
The packaging rips open easily much like the Marks & Spencer potato chips. The bag is roughly 50-60% full and a bit of air inside. I took a breathe of the freshly opened pack and it smells salty, much like soy sauce. There is also hint of olive oil being used although the ingredients list did not state.
Thin straight cut potato chips are not my preferred type of chips because they are just too thinly sliced to give off their flavour. I usually chew on 2-3 chips at one go to get the same feel as crinkle cut chips.The potato chips were lightly salted and there were quite a few chips that looked almost burnt. They taste very buttery and the burnt chips don't taste bitter at all. Quality control is quite acceptable here. I have no idea why but eating these chips suddenly made me crave for pasta.
As expected from the low sodium content, the chips don't taste salty at all. I easily finished the whole packet without feeling thirsty. I guess I should be correct in stating that this chips is MSG free because the flavour is very natural unlike MSG laden chips which strike your taste buds sharply when you first put them in your mouth.However, this natural flavour don't sit very well with me because I find the taste quite boring. I think this kind of chips target older folks who prefer "healthier choices". My verdict:
Looks: 3/5
Textual: 2/5
Smell: 3/5
Taste: 2/5
Overall: 2.5/5
Appealing packaging but the potato chips are quite mediocre falling flat on looks, textual, smell and taste. Good enough only to make me want to try again once in awhile. Recommended for health freaks but then which health freak in the right mind will eat potato chips?
Other info
Weight: 150 grams
Price: S$4.50
Country of origin: New Zealand
Available at: Cold Storage, Bugis Junction branch
