Tayto Chips

Tayto is an Irish food manufacturer, specifically snack food and chips (er, crisps).  They have been around since 1956 and are the #1 chip producer in Ireland.

Crisps come in an assortment of interesting flavors.  Yes, they have basics that we know like salted and salt & vinegar, but, like most other countries, they have so many more: beef & onion, pickled onion, spring onion, roast chicken, smoky bacon, prawn cocktail, wutser sauce.  Yup, potatoes, onions, and meat.  Story checks out.  In addition to the thin style crisps, they also make thicker, grooved "Rough Cuts" in even more fun flavors like roast ox (!) and bang bang spicy thai.  Their higher end hand cooked crisps are known as "Craft", and are more sophisticated flavors ... e.g. instead of simple cheese and onion, they offer "vintage Irish cheddar & onion" and the beef flavor turns to slow roasted beef & peppercorn.  Other products are ring shaped puffy snacks and a range of my favorite snack: popcorn.  They have fun seasonal products like, literally, turkey, ham & stuffing crisps (yes, that is one flavor), Christmas gammon party mix, and hot chocolate popcorn.

I've tried only one item, their #1 product, cheese & onion crisps.  They claim that 1/4 of all potato chips sold in Ireland are these chips.   I truly don't recall where I got them, as I haven't been to Ireland ever, and only place I've been in Europe in the past year is Poland ...

Cheese & Onion.

The chips are a traditional thin style, and taste very strongly of potato.  I realize that is an odd thing to say, but they seem more potato-forward than most American chips.  Lightly salted.  I can identify the onion powder and flavor, but the cheese is more muted, mostly just an additional savory component.  I like the flavor, but I don't gravitate towards this style of chip.  They have MSG, which is not a deterrent for me.

***+ for flavor, *** overall for style.