26 Apr 2016

Deep ridged - Lay's

Innovation is everywhere, also in the potato chips industry. Every April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, a day to promote discussion of the role of IP in encouraging innovation and creativity.

A few years ago a group of inventors at Lay's had a problem: Their favourite chips would break when dipped. They needed a hard but thin chip. Hard because they wanted the chip to resist any type of dip. Thin because very thick fried potato chips' texture is not the better. The result is a chip with a more profound corrugation than existing ruffled chips while keeping its thinness. The inventors developed cutting blades and a feeding mechanism that would slice the chips evenly while keeping them uncracked. And they filed a patent for the manufacturing process. For a deeper insight on the innovation story click here or here.
As usual, the best potatoes are selected. Washed and sliced in big waves, the chips go on to the frying process in sunflower oil (32% of final product). Despite the chips not crunching particularly loud, the impression is of a multiple crunch in many directions within our mouth. Welcome to the 3D crunch.
Features:

The biggest potato crisps is
8.0 cm long
and has a thickness of
6.05 mm *
Crunchiness:
90 dB
Other features:
Huge waves.
Origin:

Country, region
Germany
We got them from
an EDEKA market in Munich
Price / gram
1.79 € / 147 g
On-line
www.fritolay.com
* Undulated cut is measured between wave's top peak and bottom of the wave valley.
Inside a bag of Lay's Deep Ridged