Cider vinegar is an inspired choice. Different from malt vinegar’s chip-shop sharpness, different from wine vinegar’s continental pretensions. It’s fruity and rounded and specifically English in a way that suits a crisp celebrating British ingredients.
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference version executes this concept beautifully.
The cider vinegar provides sourness with depth. There’s an apple-adjacent fruitiness underneath the acid, a complexity that malt vinegar can’t achieve. It’s still definitely salt and vinegar crisps, but salt and vinegar with a twist that justifies premium positioning.
The hand-cooked base handles the acidic seasoning properly. Thick crisps stay crispy despite vinegar’s tendency to soften lesser products. The structure survives, the crunch remains, the eating experience satisfies.
Standing out in a crowded category
Salt and vinegar is the most contested crisp flavour. Everyone makes a version. The cider vinegar differentiation gives Sainsbury’s a genuine point of distinction, a reason to choose these over alternatives beyond price or availability.
One of the better products in the Taste the Difference range.
