Walkers Classic Variety Crisps, 20 x 25g

Twenty bags is the size for a household, an office or a club that goes through crisps steadily. This Walkers Classic Variety box holds twenty 25g bags, 500g of crisps, with five bags each of Cheese and Onion, Ready Salted, Salt and Vinegar and Prawn Cocktail. At one bag per school or working day, it lasts four weeks.

The four flavours, briefly

According to the published pack listing, each flavour is built on the same thin Walkers crisp: potatoes, sunflower and rapeseed oils in varying proportions, and antioxidants (rosemary extract, ascorbic acid, a tocopherol rich extract and citric acid). The pack says the potatoes are 100% Great British potatoes, and it states no added MSG or artificial colours.

Ready salted is that crisp with salt. Cheese and onion adds dried onion, salt, whey, lactose, sugar, flavouring, cheese powder, dried yeast, citric and malic acids, whey protein, dried garlic and two colours from plants, annatto and paprika extract. Salt and vinegar adds potassium acetates and citric acid, flavourings, potassium chloride, sugar, salt and yeast extract. Prawn cocktail adds flavourings, sugar, citric acid, potassium acetates, dextrose, potassium chloride, salt, yeast powder, onion powder, tomato powder, spice extract, paprika extract and the sweetener sucralose.

Sorting a twenty bag box

With twenty bags in four flavours, it is worth knowing which bags carry what. Milk appears only in the cheese and onion seasoning. A sweetener, sucralose, appears only in the prawn cocktail, and the full product name for those bags says with sugar and sweetener. The ready salted and salt and vinegar ingredients list neither milk nor sweetener. The allergy advice for the box says the crisps may contain cereals containing gluten, mustard and soya, and the listing highlights milk for the box as a whole.

The pack states the crisps are suitable for vegetarians; the prawn cocktail bags contain no seafood. No vegan or gluten free claim is made. Recipes and factory arrangements change, so check the allergy advice on each bag you hand out, particularly in a shared office or a school setting.

A panel for each flavour

Per 25g bag, the labels give cheese and onion 128 kcal, 7.4g of fat and 0.29g of salt; ready salted 130 kcal, 7.8g of fat and 0.3g of salt; salt and vinegar 127 kcal, 7.3g of fat and 0.16g of salt; and prawn cocktail 127 kcal, 7.2g of fat and 0.16g of salt. Against an average adult's reference intake, every bag is between 6% and 7% of the day's energy, and the salt ranges from about 3% to 5%. On the UK front of pack scale all four flavours are high for fat, medium for saturates and salt, and low for sugars.

How the crisps are made

The slices are cut thin from washed potatoes, rinsed of loose starch and fried until the water has cooked out and the starch has set into a brittle sheet. Each of the four seasonings is tumbled over warm crisps, so the oil holds the powder, and the bags are then sealed individually. Sealing each bag separately is what lets a box this size last: a bag opened in the fourth week is as crisp as one opened on the first day.

The box and the recycling

The published listing marks the box itself for recycling, and Walkers describes the cardboard box as fully recyclable. The individual bags are a different material, a layered film, so check local advice for those.

Keeping track in a shared cupboard

In an office or a club, a short note taped inside the lid saves questions: cheese and onion contains milk, prawn cocktail contains a sweetener and no seafood, and all four are suitable for vegetarians according to the pack. Anyone with an allergy should still read the allergy advice on the bag they pick up, because recipes and factory arrangements change.

Who the twenty bag box suits

A family with several children in school, an office snack cupboard, a sports club tuck shop or a party with a few dozen guests. Twenty bags split into four bowls by flavour make an easy party table, and five bags of each means no flavour runs out long before the others. Because each bag is sealed, the box keeps well across a month in a cool cupboard.

Other sizes

The same box comes with fourteen bags (four cheese and onion, four ready salted, three salt and vinegar and three prawn cocktail) and with six bags (two each of cheese and onion, ready salted and salt and vinegar). For meat flavours, the Walkers Meaty Variety box also comes in a twenty bag size, with smoky bacon, roast chicken, prawn cocktail and cheese and onion. And the five prawn cocktail bags here make an easy party trick: crumble one over prawn and lettuce cups just before serving.

Storage

The pack advises a cool, dry place. Store the box away from heat and damp, keep the bags sealed until needed, and finish each bag once it is opened.

Sizes of Walkers Classic Variety Crisps we stock

Figures as published on each pack's label.

The published listing gives the United Kingdom as the country of origin, and the pack names Walkers as the maker. The tasting notes on this page are our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.