Hard cheddar (McCoy's Cheddar & Onion)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	McCoy's Cheddar & Onion
Date:	07/11/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb texture, generous size, attractive packaging

Disadvantages: Taste not up to the best McCoys standards, high in fat

A little while ago I gave a largely favourable review (four stars) to the Salt & Malt Vinegar flavour of McCoys; this time around I'm looking at their Cheddar & Onion flavour. This, along with the plain (but still nice) Salted version, makes up the usual six packs of McCoys, with two bags of each flavour at a total cost of £1.51 from Tesco. That is a little bit expensive, given that (for example) a six pack of Walkers is around the £1.25 mark, but then I suppose McCoys are marketed as something of a premium brand.

As is usual with almost every brand of crisps (the major exception being Walkers) the cheese and onion flavour is indicated by means of the colour green. In this case it's a very attractive deep grassy green, rather than the somewhat anaemic colouring - if green can ever be said to be anaemic - of some cheaper brands, with the trademark ripply effect echoing the crisps inside. I will here repeat my previous complaint: it's extremely disappointing that after using foil bags for years the crisp industry has still not found a way to make them recyclable. There does need to be some prodding done here, perhaps from the European authorities.

As usual with McCoys crisps, the nutritional information panel is quite prominent and clearly laid out. Personally I wish we had an industry-standard design for these things, as is the case in the USA, but failing that the panel here is about the best you'll see. The actual figures, however, are a bit less enticing: a 32-gram bag contains 165 kcal, which works out at 516 kcal per 100g - roughly the same as chocolate! That isn't unusual for crisps, but it's surprising how many people don't realise it. The fat content is also very high at 9.8g per bag. These crisps are suitable for vegetarians, but do contain milk and wheat - and monosodium glutamate, if that bothers you.

I'm not quite as keen on the smell, or indeed the taste, of the Cheddar & Onion flavour as I am on most other McCoys variants. Very few mass-market cheese and onion crisps are truly excellent, and these are no exception: the monosodium glutamate in the recipe is unfortunately quite prominent, MSG's characteristic slightly waxy taste and consistency being more obvious than in some flavours. The cheddar taste itself is not particularly fantastic either. However, these crisps are still better than most of their direct rivals, and the texture and particularly the crunch is superb, McCoys' use of thicker crisps than most really paying dividends here.

I wouldn't rate these crisps quite as highly as their Salt & Malt Vinegar counterparts, though part of that is simply that I don't like this flavour quite as much anyway. They're not at all bad, and the generous serving and chunky crisps do give a satisfying feel. Ideally I'd award this flavour 3.5 stars, but since I can't do that I'm rounding it down to three because I feel that while they're quite good, they could have been better. Recommended to a certain extent, but Cheddar & Onion is by no means the best flavour in the McCoys range.

Summary: They'll fill you up, but other flavours are nicer