What a lovely Christmas gift from Pringles! I’ve often lamented that salty snacks went over the edge with ‘amazing new flavours’. Now, the folks who created the ‘mashed potato’ chip have vindicated me with their own stats…
Original and Sour Cream & Onion Pringles: In all their stackable glory…
I was happy beyond words (for a moment or so, anyway) when I read that Pringles has released year-end report. The self-congratulatory news release earlier this week headlined the results of a 2023 survey of sales volume of the Pringles flavours. But it’s more than just a quaint bit of trivia.
Turns out, the most popular Pringles flavours world-wide are… Original and Sour Cream & Onion.
A point of pride?
“While we create hundreds of unique irresistible local market flavors to provide our consumers all around the world with tastes they know and love, ultimately we find we are all more similar than different in our preferences for Pringles flavors,” said Christine Jakovcic, Vice President of Global Brands for Kellanova (Formerly Kelloggs Co.)
Yes… In spite of all the armed conflicts, economic crises, climate catastrophes and other crap going on in the world today, Kellanova is proud to proclaim that, “in every corner of the globe […] people can agree on two things: Original and Sour Cream & Onion Pringles.”
It’s a bit of a stretch by any measure. But not technically incorrect. I’ll give them that one. After all, it’s just marketing bumpf.
HOW many flavours?
I knew Pringles – like all the salty snacks purveyors – has released a plethora of flavours over the yeas. I didn’t know that Pringles went all the back to the mid-1950s, when Original first came out. Or maybe I just forgot. So long ago… Sour Cream & Onion only appeared 30 years later, in 1984.
Nevertheless…
Pringles proudly reveals, in its news release, that it sells more than 160 flavours of mashed potato chips around the world! And those are just the current ones. In wonder how many more have been launched, then discontinued over Pringles amost 70 year history? As we used to say back in the day, when Pringles were still a stackable curiosity, “It blows my mind, man!”
“Local personality and tastes come through in flavor extensions. For example, in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, popular flavors have included Pigs in Blanket and Cheese Fondue. In Japan, fans love Egg Sandwich Pringles, and in S. Korea, Sweet Mayo Cheese is all the rage.”
All well and good – But…
If folks ‘in every corner of the globe’ prefer Original (salt only) and Sour Cream & Onion over all the other flavours offered… Why bother with the other flavours? After all, science has proven it’s the basics that attract and addict us to snack foods: salt, fat and sugar.
Who really needs all that other stuff? For instance… Do we really need even-hotter spicy snack flavours? It started simply, with ‘Hot’ and ‘Spicy’. Then it escalated to ‘Fiery’. Next, it was ‘Volcanic’. At its extreme, the spicy chip ‘challenge’ became deadly!
Pringles could probably make major marketing hay out of a totally new motto: ‘Sticking with the Basics!’ They could point a derisive finger at the competition, riding off in all flavour directions like Don Quixote, finally getting lost in the jungle of other flavours strewn across the salty-snacks landscape.
All that aside… I must thank Pringles for confirming my long-held belief that all those other flavours are just superfluous novelties tied into marketing and promo stunts.
My questions remain
Do you eat Pringles?
Do you have a favourite flavour?
Has it occurred to you that salty snack makers could reduce costs greatly – and thus reduce the cost of their products accordingly – if they just stuck with the 2 proven flavours? And didn’t spend so much time and money fiddling with marketing gimmicks?
Do you even care? (As long as you get your hit of fat and salt?)
Muse on that…
~ Maggie J.