Brand Test: Kettle Chips

Ok, so they’re not the healthiest food around, but who doesn’t crave the salty, crunchy goodness of kettle chips now and then? I know we do! It was time to discover what brand was most worthy of the caloric splurge, so we did a blind taste test of three popular brands: Cape Cod, Kettle Brand and Dutch Crunch.

It’s always surprising how seemingly similar products can taste so different – and, in this case, we were shocked. After all, we’re talking about potatoes, oil and salt. How much can they really vary from each other? As we discovered, quite a lot!

We all loved the natural potato flavor of Dutch Crunch Kettle Chips, making them the overall favorite. What we missed was the hearty crunch and kettle appearance the other two brands boasted.

Kettle brand offered the right amount of salt and good crunch, but was definitely the greasiest of the three brands. Some of us detected a slightly “off” flavor. Nonetheless, this brand had some strong advocates on our team and we all loved the natural look of their packaging.

Going into the Brand Test, several of us thought Cape Cod was going to emerge the victor. Many of us had tried them in the past and were huge fans. Although the chips had an authentic kettle appearance and nice crunch, they had a noticeably fishy flavor when compared to the others. Maybe it was just an “off” batch, but they lived up to their nautical name.

Now that we’ve all had our salt and grease fix, any ideas for a healthier brand test next time around?