In today’s Gen Z bulletin — and I’m beginning to understand there must always be one — stats from Ocado suggest that the recent rise of all things Nineties (something firmly driven by the Zeds) now extends beyond the popularity of low rise jeans and paying through the nose for price-gouged Oasis tickets. Next up are crisps.
I’ve written before than that the kids are alright but finally we have unarguable proof: Frazzles — surely the only foodstuff to name itself after a state of anxiety — are back. So are Skips and Chipsticks. Someone should check in on Quavers.
Granted, Ocado is an unusual source in this instance, given it’s a struggle to imagine many 20-somethings do the weekly shop on the country’s priciest supermarket app. But perhaps mum and dad are, and the facts are these: sales of Smith's bacon Frazzles are up 48 per cent on last year; prawn cocktail Skips (the only permissible flavour) are up 47 per cent, and salt and vinegar Chipsticks have risen by 42 per cent. Even Discos — and in my school, you had to be a proper f****** loser to eat Discos — are apparently seeing sales increase 15 per cent month on month (up from, what, one wonders? A pack a week?)
As yet, there’s no official line on Pombears, and NikNaks seem to be pitifully trailing the pack with a mere six per cent monthly growth. No news either on KP Cheese Footballs, which is a bit of a relief: look, nostalgia goes a long way, but everyone has a limit.
Admittedly, crisps never went away. But in the past decade they have, in the manner of smearing lipstick on a pig, attempted to tart themselves up into something resembling an upmarket snack. Crisp flavours I have cowered from over the past few years include: bourbon (for the alcoholic in your life); fried egg (fart in crisp form); and salted caramel and double cream (don’t). Iberico ham? Truffle? Pickle?! This isn’t even touching the sides of what might be considered The Curse of Christmas. But’s let’s not.
Three pints in, few can have turned to their mate tottering off for another round and shouted: ‘Oi Steve, geddus a packet of cappuccino Lay’s, can ya?’
Crisps were simply not invented with such tomfoolery in mind. Bits of potato fried in oil have never been a perfect conduit for nuanced flavour. They are not a shortcut for, say, actually trying venison for the first time. If you’re curious what caviar is really like, Torres probably isn’t the company to turn to. Roast chicken crisps don’t taste remotely like actual roast chicken.
Nor is this what crisps are for. They’re disposable snacks: food to sidestep hunger with and always best kept simple. They’re fun, treats for children and steadiers for adults in the pub. Three pints in, few can have turned to their mate tottering off for another round and shouted: “Oi Steve, geddus a packet of cappuccino Lay’s, can ya?”
Mind you, nostalgia for crisps is nothing new; in the early Noughties, Walkers absorbed Smith’s line of “Salt & Shake”, wherein children are tasked with seasoning their own crisps, just as children did in the Sixties and Seventies. I like the idea of a five-year-old too grand to accept the ready-salted variety.
Crisps will stay, flavours will change. Check back in a couple of years for the follow-up column, on how Gen Alpha should be championed for bringing back whimsical Walker’s. Today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s crisp packet, or something like that.
