Review: Sweet Onion Kettle Chips

If the Maui onions used to flavour Maui-style potato chips like riding the waves and hanging out on the beach, what about sweet onions? Do they bake scones for elderly veterans? Do they hold the elevator door for you as you sprint through the lobby? When you cut them, do they make you laugh, not cry?

I’ve never speculated about the inner feelings on onions quite as much as I have since reading the marketing bumpf on the back of a bag of chips I bought in Hawaii. Maybe it’s best not to get too far down the road of vegetable personification.

Regardless of whether or not Sweet Onion Kettle Chips have feelings, I’ve examined my own feelings on their deliciousness.

First off, they’re made with good stuff. They’re non-GMO, there are no artificial colours or flavours, no preservatives, no gluten. They even up the eco stakes by talking about using wind and solar power, a green building and biodiesel. With green credentials like that, I’m not sure how they made it across the Alberta border. (I kid, I kid.)

In terms of taste, they’re what you’d expect. With a name like Sweet Onion Kettle Chips, I expect both flavour elements to be present:

• Sweet Onion: Present. The taste is basic onion at first, but it changes and develops as the aftertaste lingers for minutes afterward. Could the flavour stand to be stronger and more complex? Yes. For something billing itself as “sweet onion,” there’s not much sweetness. That would have added a nice element to the taste. The flavouring coverage is also inconsistent from chip to chip.
• Kettle Chips: Yep. That’s there, too. The texture is crunchy and oily, and the chip taste isn’t buried under the onion flavouring. In fact, the oil competes for prominence with the onion. In my books, that’s how a kettle chip should be.

I like these. I’d like to see a touch more complexity (and intensity) to the flavour up front. But the texture and crunch is bang-on perfect. Eat these late at night and you may wake your neighbours.

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RATINGS AND DETAILS

Cost: $3.99 for a 220-gram (7.75 oz.) bag at my local Edmonton Sobeys.

Value for cash money: Good. Premium chips, premium price.

Availability: Far and wide. It used to be more tricky to find Kettle Brand chips, but everywhere seems to have them, though flavour selection varies a lot based on the store.

Nutrition?: 210 calories per 18 to 20 chips (40 grams). A bit of fibre, some protein, some vitamin C, and quite a lot of fat, though none of it is trans-fat.

WTF?: “Made with natural, real food ingredients.” I know what they’re getting at, but lines like this make me shake my head.

The verdict: A yummy product. But you’ll need a good dollop of toothpaste to brush away the onion breath.

The second, bonus verdict: Eating chips while typing = not a great idea.