Neal Brothers Foods – Pure Pink Kettle Chips

Neal Brothers is a Canadian brand that has been around for a couple of decades, and is what I consider to be on of the newer snack companies in recent memory. They do a lot of interesting snacks and foods, but I know them best for their pretzels. As someone who is not a huge fan of pretzels in general, you can imagine why my experience with them is somewhat limited. I’m always up to try new chips though, so I’m excited to give these a go.

These look, and smell identical to most of other lightly salted kettle chips. I kind of went into this assuming pink Himalayan salt is another gimmicky, and it is, but I was still hoping I could see some sort of pink on the chips. But alas, no. Which in hindsight is probably a good thing – pink potato chips seem unnatural and unholy enough that I’d imagine it’s not something you would want to mess with anyways.

In terms of flavour, there’s not much to say here other than it’s a pretty standard kettle cooked chip that has been lightly salted. It’s not particularly salty, and the potato flavour is there but it’s not as good as say, Hardbite or Kettle. It’s got a more french fry flavour to it like Miss Vickie’s, which isn’t bad. I just prefer my spuds to be more spudsy. Is that even a word? Methinks it has something to do with the frying process as well as the oil used. I find myself constantly thinking back to the avocado oil Hardbite flavours, and how they’re my favourite.

Texture is what it’s all about with kettle chips, and these are again, fairly typical. They aren’t bad, and have the requisite crunch to them, but I guess I’ve been spoiled by thicker cuts of kettle chips, so I prefer the heartier crunch, while these are more crisp and thin. These read more like a Miss Vickie’s, which while still better than a standard potato chip, is still not as great as Hardbite which has emerged as my clear favourite so far. I’d say this comes down to preference.

While not what I’d consider my go to, they are nonetheless still decent kettle chips, and I still found myself having a hard time stopping. If you like the typical salted flavour potato chips these will be good for you to try. If you prefer something fancy and think that pink salt makes any difference, it really doesn’t.