Essential Ready Salted is Waitrose admitting that some customers just want cheap crisps. The green-branded value range delivers acceptable quality at accessible prices.
These are middle-ground crisps. Better than true budget alternatives, less good than Waitrose’s premium offerings. Adequate texture, appropriate salt, forgettable potato flavour. Everything works. Nothing excites.
The Waitrose context matters. Shoppers in Waitrose expect certain baseline standards. Essential Ready Salted meets those standards while minimising cost. It’s budget crisps for people who’ve never experienced true budget.
For lunchboxes and multipacks and occasions where crisps need to exist without mattering, these serve.
Adequate from Waitrose is still adequate.
