Marks & Spencer Hand Cooked Sea Salt & Balsamic Vinegar Crisps Review

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Nutrition

Bag
Calories
Fat
Saturated
Salt
Sugars
40g
200
11.6g
1.2g
0.29g
1.1g
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Verdict

Bag

The M&S Hand Cooked range feature a 1950s retro look.The basic drawings to represent the flavourings are similarly vintage. The bags are flavour colour coded, which in turn causes the darker bags' black writing to get a little lost. The writing itself has a sort of stamped feel. This design would have been cutting edge at the time of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, but aside from its shelf stand out properties, it is just a bit old fashioned for a modern market. The Hand Cooked selling point does nothing to help it.
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Crunch

Kettle Cooked Crisps generally have a superior crunch to traditional, thin cut, quick fried Crisps. These Crisps managed to sustain a crunch throughout, with no sign of let up before it was swallowed. There were not many sharp edges from hardened oil. They were just about spot on.

Texture

Hand Cooked generally means batch fried in UK Chips and Crisps parlance. This tallied with the additional grease that was saturated throughout the Crisps. Plus the curly and wavy edges of the Crisps. There was a lot of skin visible on edges and while the seasoning was sparse, there was oily and flaky residue .
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Taste

A Nose Plunge Test revealed a calming Vinegar. Not strong, but pleasant. Some Crisps were a little more seasoned than others, but none featured an overwhelming flavour of potato, Salt or Vinegar. It was a fairly well balanced effort that was mild, maybe even slightly sweet, but strong enough to go in for more.