Tapioca?!?! (KP Skips)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	KP Skips
Date:	18/09/09 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tasty, moreish

Disadvantages: Not filling

I got these last weekend at the same time as I bought the Frisps. Having eaten them before though I knew precisely what I was getting for my money.


Packaging.

The Skips I purchased came in a multipack containing 9 packets of the Prawn Cocktail flavour. According to Wikipedia Skips are also available in Bacon and Cheese flavours but I can't say I've ever seen them. Perhaps I don't pay enough attention when shopping....

The multipack bag, and indeed the crisp packets themselves are predominantly yellows with the Skips name in red. The front of the multipack and the packets tell us that there are:-

+ No artificial colours or flavours
+ Less than 100 claories per pack
+ No MSG

The back of the bag contains the usual lists of ingredients and nutritional information as well as a little adverts for some other KP Products:- Wheat Crunchies, Discos and Nik Naks.


Nutritional Information per bag {per 100g in brackets}

Energy kJ: 372kJ {2191kJ}
kcal: 89kcal {524kcal}
Protein: 1.1g {6.2g}
Carbohydrate: 9.9g {58.5g}
of which sugars: 1.4g {8.2g}
Fat: 5.0g {29.5g}
(of which saturates): 0.5g {2.8g}
Fibre: 0.2g {1.0g}
Sodium: 0.2g {1.1g}

Contains: Milk ,
Produced on a line handling Egg, Soya, Wheat, Gluten, Mustard


Ingredients:

Tapioca Starch, Sunflower Oil (29%), Maize Flour, Prawn Cocktail Flavour [Acidity Regulator: Sodium Diacetate, Dried Tomato, Dried Whole Milk, Dried Onion, Citric Acid, Flavourings, Yeast Extract, Potassium Chloride], Rice Protein, Sugar, Salt. Colour: Paprika Extract.


Price:

At the time of writing my local shop are charging 99p for a multipack containing 9 bags of crisps.


Taste & Opinion:

No potato or wheat listed in the ingredients then. These crisps are made from tapioca starch and are described as "fizzy melty snacks" on the front of the individual crisp packets. There's an aroma as soon as you open the packet. I take a smell and try to remember what it reminds me of. Suddenly it occurs to me that it's quite similar to the smell of the Tomato Flavour Wheat Crunchies.

The crisps themselves look like a slightly denser version of the rice crackers that some Chinese restaurants place on your table whilst you're waiting for your meal to be prepared. They look like a slightly misshaped tortoise shell, but on a smaller scale.

Placing a crisp on your togue you can hear the fizz that's referred to on the front of the pack. It's not a particularly loud fizz but it's audible to anyone without hearing difficulties. As for the melty part I placed a crisp on my tongue and closed my mouth so that the top of my mouth was just touching the top of the crisp. I found that it took around 30 seconds for the crisp to start to "melt" and fall apart.

Tastewise I suspect that these are quite artificial. I can't detect any underlying taste from the tapioca starch so it's either tasteless or has very little taste in its natural state or the Prawn Cocktail flavourings have masked whatever it there. The Prawn Cocktail flavour is perhaps less pronounced than it is in some other crisps such as Walkers Prawn Cocktail but, despite that and the fact that these crisps have a light, airy consistency that is in no way crunchy I somehow find these incredibly moreish.

Because they are so light it would be easy to eat 4 or 5 packets of these in a single sitting and still feel as those you've barely consumed anything. However 5 packets would equate for 25g worth of fat from the RDA of 70g so perhaps it's not a good idea to over indulge on these crisps. One to be strong willed over rather than giving in and muching your way through the entire multipack in a single day!



Crisps ranked in order of fat content:

01) Golden Wonder Nik Naks (Rib 'n' Saucy Flavour): 38.3%
02) Frisps (Ready Salted Flavour): 35.1%
03) Frisps (Cheese 'n' Onion Flavour): 34.0%
04) Frisps (Salt 'n' Vinegar Flavour): 33.9%
05) Pringles Extreme (Smokin' Ribs Flavour): 32.0%
06) McCoys (Flame Grilled Steak Flavour): 30.7%
07) McCoys (Roast Ham and Mustard Flavour): 30.6%
08) McCoys (Thai Sweet Chicken Flavour): 30.3%
09) KP Discos (Salt 'n' Vinegar Flavour): 29.6%
10) KP Skips (Prawn Cocktail Flavour: 29.5%
11=) Golden Wonder Wheat Crunchies (Crispy Bacon flavour): 25.1%
11=) Golden Wonder Wheat Crunchies (Worcester Sauce flavour): 25.1%
13) Golden Wonder Wheat Crunchies (Spicy Tomato flavour): 25.0%
14) Smith's Chipsticks: 23.0%
15) Sainsbury's Bacon Crispies (20.6%)
16) Walker French Fries (Ready Salted / Cheese and Onion / Salt and Vinegar flavours): 16.0%

Summary: KP Skips