Herr's
Address: 20 Herr Drive, PO Box 300, Nottingham, Pennsylvania 19362, USA Phone: 610 932 9330 Website: www.herrs.com Email: Contact Form Herr'sThe Herr Foods story began in 1946 when 21-year-old James Stauffer Herr bought a small potato chip company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for $1,750. A year later the business moved to a vacated tobacco shed on the Herr family farm.
As Jim Herr learned more about the business he developed new and better chip cooking processes and a delicious snack food became even better. As demand for Herr's® Potato Chips grew, so did the company. In the spring of 1949, Jim located a 3,600-square-foot bakery facility available for rent in the small town of West Willow, Pennsylvania. In 1951 Herr's® experienced a major disaster when the fire broke out in the plant. With help from family, friends and the bank, the Herrs bought 37 acres and built a new 4,500 square-foot potato chip manufacturing plant. By 1956, the company had erected a 7,000-square-foot warehouse for storage of its allied products. In 1958, after careful consideration, Herr's® began adding seasoning to the potato chips. The barbeque chip was the first flavored chip the company tried and it's still in production today. Over the years the company added a number of potato chip flavors, including Sour Cream and Onion, No-Salt, Old Bay (crab seasoning), Salt and Vinegar, Pizza, Red Hot, Slightly Salted, Pennsylvania Dutch, Dill, and Sour Cream and Cheddar. During 1963 Herr's® constructed a 21,000 square-foot production facility in a field behind the Herr family's house. In 1974, Herr's® switched from glassine to foil bags. And to keep in step with consumer demand, Herr's® began producing a number of new products: 1976 - Cheese Curls, 1978 - Popcorn, 1981 - Pretzels, 1983 - Corn products, such as corn and tortilla chips, 1984 - Onion Rings. In the new millennium, Herr Foods is considered a leader in the snack food industry. Herr's Red Hot Potato Chips
Herr's have several hot sauce and barbecue related flavours. I was therefore expecting the hottest chip on the market. They had a peppery, sweet paprika aroma and this was followed by a fairly hotly sauced chip. It was nice and consistent, but really, come on Herr's - I wanted the hottest chip ever. (11) Herr's Crisp 'n Tasty Potato Chips
The corn/cottonseed oil these chips were cooked in may give them a bit of crispy crunch, but it also brought out the flavour of the potatoes and salt. The relatively high saturated fat was noticeable, but you get that with the very tastiest chips. (14) Herr's Ketchup Flavored Potato Chips
These chips were interesting. Seasoning should combine with the natural flavour of the potato to deliver a balanced taste, especially when more than one component makes a pair, such as sour cream and onion. It has to be said, these hit a home run. Personally, the flavour was not for this reviewer, but individual views must be put aside because if you're looking for a well-balanced tomato ketchup flavoured chip you would be hard-pressed to find a better example than these. (21 *) Herr's Lightly Salted Potato Chips
These chips lacked taste and flavour. They may well have fifty-percent less salt but it also makes it fifty-percent more uninteresting. If you want a potato taste have a potato, which won't have the saturated fat of these chips. This is just an opinion of course - Some would consider this a great accompaniment to an exciting sandwich, or even the base upon which they could put their own seasoning. (9)
Herr’s McCormick Grill Mates Montreal
Steak Potato Chips I had to look up Montreal steak seasoning. It includes garlic, coriander, black pepper, Cayenne pepper, dill, and salt. The spicy seasoning should, in theory at least, tumble straight from McCormick’s jar onto the chips. There was a tangy peppery garlic taste that would spoil any quality steak, but it worked well on these thickly cut ridged chips. (15)
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Herr's Baby Back Ribs Potato Chips
An aromatic barbecue smell emerged from the freshly opened bag. Not much, but enough. There was a distinct salty barbecue flavour to them and maybe a little sweet bacon. Further chomping plus a constant mental reminder of the flavour and I was convinced that these were indeed, baby back ribs chips. They have a relatively high sodium and sugar content, but they are a pretty good example of a relatively odd, but potentially popular flavour. (17) Herr's Barbecue Potato Chips
Herr's have a few variations on the barbecue theme, and these were presumably the standard flavour to which another seasoning is added. It was a basic, light but tasty, and similarly mildly sweet barbecue flavour - A bit nothingy. It could be used as the yardstick to measure almost all barbecue flavours because it would sit straight in the middle of most comparisons. (12) Herr's Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Chips
A Nose Plunge Test revealed a slightly cheesy aroma. Not a big mature Cheddar hit, but a somewhat mild and tasty smell that was well matched by the taste. The sour cream was evident as it paired with a balanced but slightly sweet cheese flavouring. (17) Herr's Creamy Dill Pickle Potato Chips
No chips manufacturer would write 'Mild Pickle' on the front of their packet, but this is perhaps where this flavour leaned. There were clues - The inclusion of cream, for example. I found them quite rewarding. A somewhat salty sweetish pickle that mixed nicely with a creamy overlay. (16) Herr's Honey BBQ Potato Chips
You would imagine that with the wide range of barbecue flavoured chips Herr's make, they would have got the recipe right by now. And they have. This may be a little syrupy for my palate, but it certainly amounted to its description. There was an instant hit of sweet honey. This was followed by a salty, spicy barbecue flavour. (15) Herr's Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips
The nutrition chart on the reverse of the pack said these included two grams of sugar per ounce. This seemed a little odd - Very few other manufacturers need to add sugar content to their salt and vinegar varieties. A Nose Plunge Test featured a pleasant vinegar aroma, which was matched by the taste. Despite also having a relatively high salt content, these were certainly on the vinegar dominance side. A closer balance would have been preferred. (10) Herr's Sour Cream & Onion Chips
A Nose Plunge Test revealed a salty onion aroma. The taste was also even stevens in what is often a battle between the sour cream and the onion in many chips company bags. Getting the balance right is the secret of a good version of this chip. They were creamy and had a fair balance of onion, so all in all, they ticked that box - A pretty good version. (16) Herr's Ripples Potato Chips
Rather than the myriad of jazzy flavours available, some consumers consider a natural, taste free chip, to be the only option. These chips did have flavour, but it was of potato. The saturated fat content was high, which helped the flavour along - They had a warm and fluffy taste that made me go back for more of a variety I would ordinarily avoid aside from Taste Testing purposes. (13) Herr's Salt & Pepper Potato Chips
A Nose Plunge Test revealed a rather strong pepper aroma. The taste was also a little overly peppery. There was a lot (a lot) of salt as the sodium content suggests on the nutrition label, but the flavour balance certainly leaned towards pepper. (12) Herr's OLD BAY Seasoned Potato Chips
If you are from Maryland, you are likely to be accustomed to seeing the famous crab seasoning powder on your store shelves. The seasoning is named after the Old Bay Line, a passenger ship company that worked the waters of the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, in the early twentieth century. It contains pretty much a pinch of everything on your spice rack, from paprika and cayenne pepper to ginger and cinnamon. To my inexperienced palate, it tasted a little like salty beef stock, with a touch of vinegar and maybe a little pinch of the tank water restaurants keep their shellfish in. I appreciate this will be a controversial opinion among aficionados of the seasoning and the pleasure I am sure it brings to crabs of the region, so I will concede and provide the appropriate praise – It is an incredibly original taste and deserves the utmost credit because of that. Certainly award winning in its originality. (18) |
