Salt and vinegar sorts brands into tiers. The aggressive tier, where your lips sting and your face scrunches. The moderate tier, where vinegar is present but polite. And the disappointing tier, where vinegar is more suggestion than statement.
Tesco sits firmly in moderate, leaning toward disappointing.
The sourness registers. You know you’re eating salt and vinegar crisps. But there’s no commitment, no intensity, no sense that anyone involved in creating these actually loves salt and vinegar. They’ve produced a product that technically qualifies. Qualification isn’t passion.
The cautious approach
Supermarket own-brands are terrified of extremity. What if someone finds the vinegar too strong? What if children don’t like it? What if one complaint arrives at customer service? Better to sand down every edge, to make everything acceptable to everyone.
The result is salt and vinegar for people who don’t really want salt and vinegar. For the rest of us, it’s a waste of a crisp opportunity.
