Walkers

Walkers is a British snack food manufacturer mainly operating in the UK and Ireland. The company is best known for manufacturing potato crisps and other (non-potato-based) snack foods. In 2013, it held 56% of the British crisp market.^[4] Walkers was founded in 1948 in Leicester, England, by Henry Walker. In 1989, Walkers was acquired by Lay’s owner, Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo.

The Walkers factory in Leicester produces over 11 million bags of crisps per day, using about 800 tons of potatoes. According to the BBC television programme Inside the Factory, production of a bag of crisps takes approximately 35 minutes from the moment the raw potatoes are delivered to the factory, to the point at which finished product leaves the dispatch bay for delivery to customers.^[7] The company produces a variety of flavours for its crisps. The three main varieties are: Cheese and Onion (introduced in 1954), Salt and Vinegar (introduced in 1967) and Ready Salted.^[8] Other varieties include: Worcester Sauce, Roast Chicken, Prawn Cocktail, Smoky Bacon, Tomato Ketchup, and Pickled Onion.

The Leicester-born former England international footballer Gary Lineker has been the face of the brand since 1995, featuring in most of its popular commercials and successful advertising campaigns. For the 2011 Comic Relief, four celebrities each represented four new flavours. The Walkers brand (under PepsiCo) sponsors the UEFA Champions League for the UK and Ireland markets. In 2019, Walkers reunited with the Spice Girls, with the 1990s girl band featuring in a campaign.

Since 2008, Walkers has run its “Do Us a Flavour” campaign, challenging the British public to think up unique flavours for its crisps. Six flavours were chosen from among the entries and released as special editions. Consumers could vote on their favourite, and the winner would become a permanent flavour. In 2018, Walkers launched six new flavours to celebrate the brand’s seventieth birthday, with each flavour representing a different decade.

In the 1880s, Walker moved from Mansfield to Leicester (43 miles south) to take over an established butcher’s shop in the high street. Meat rationing in the UK after World War II saw the factory output drop dramatically, and so in 1948 the company starting looking at alternative products. Potato crisps were becoming increasingly popular with the public; this led managing director R.E. Gerrard to shift the company focus and begin hand-slicing and frying potatoes.

Prior to the 1950s crisps were sold without flavour—Smith’s of London sold plain potato crisps which came with a small blue sachet of salt that could be sprinkled over them. The first crisps manufactured by Walkers in 1948 were sprinkled with salt and sold for threepence a bag. After Archer Martin and Richard Synge (while working in Leeds) received a Nobel Prize for the invention of partition chromatography in 1952, food scientists began to develop flavours via a gas chromatograph, a device that allowed scientists to understand chemical compounds behind complex flavours such as cheese. In 1954, the first flavoured crisps were invented by Joe “Spud” Murphy (owner of the Irish company Tayto) who developed a technique to add cheese and onion seasoning during production. Later that year, Walkers introduced Cheese and Onion (inspired by the Ploughman’s lunch), and Salt and Vinegar was launched in 1967 (inspired by the nation’s love of fish and chips). Prawn Cocktail flavour was introduced in the 1970s (inspired by the 1970s popular starter of prawn cocktail) and Roast Chicken (inspired by the nation’s roast dinner).In 1989, the company was acquired by PepsiCo, which placed operations under its Frito-Lay unit.

The Walkers logo, featuring a red ribbon around a yellow sun, is noticeably similar to Lay’s. It derives from the Walkers logo used in 1990. The company is still a significant presence in Leicester. Gary Lineker, the Leicester-born former footballer, is now the face of the company. In 2000, Lineker’s Walkers commercials were ranked ninth in Channel 4’s UK wide poll of the “100 Greatest Adverts“. The official website states that an estimated “11 million people will eat a Walkers product every day”.The company emplys over 4,000 people in 15 locations around the UK.

In June 1999, PepsiCo transferred ownership of its Walkers brands out of Britain and into a Swiss subsidiary, Frito-Lay Trading GmbH.^[20] Subsequently, according to The Guardian, the UK tax authorities managed to claw back less than a third of what they might have received had an unchanged structure continued producing the same sort of level of UK profits and tax as Walkers Snack Foods had in 1998. In September 2001, Walkers ran a “Moneybags” promotion where £20, £10 and £5 notes were placed in special winning bags. This was very popular. However, two workers at a crisp factory were sacked after stealing cash prizes from bags on the production line.

In February 2006, Walkers changed its brand label and typeset. It also announced it would reduce the saturated fat in its crisps by 70%. It started frying its crisps in “SunSeed” oil, as claiming the oil is higher in monounsaturated fat content than the standard sunflower oil which it had used previously, establishing its own sunflower farms in Ukraine and Spain to be able to produce sufficient quantities of the oil. Walkers updated its packaging style in June 2007, moving to a brand identity reminiscent of the logo used from 1998–2006.

Many of Walkers brands were formerly branded under the Smiths Crisps name. This comes from the time when Walkers, Smiths and Tudor Crisps were the three main brands of Nabisco’s UK snack division, with Tudor being marketed mainly in the north of England and Smiths in the south. After the takeover by PepsiCo, the Tudor name was dropped, and the Smiths brand has become secondary to Walkers. The only products retaining the Smiths brand are Salt & Vinegar and Ready Salted Chipsticks, Frazzles and the “Savoury Selection”, which includes Bacon Flavour Fries, Scampi Flavour Fries and Cheese Flavoured Moments. To promote the freshness of its products, Walkers began to package them in foil bags from 1993, then from 1996, began filling them with nitrogen instead of air.

In 1997, Walkers became the brand name of Quavers and Monster Munch snacks. In January 1999, Walkers launched Max, a brand with a range of crisps and then a new-look Quavers in March 1999. In April 2000, another of the Max flavours called Red Hot Max was launched and then Naked Max in June 2000. In February 2000, a new-look Cheetos was relaunched, serving as the only cheesy snack in the UK. In July 2000, Quavers were relaunched and then a picture of the multipack. In March 2001, Walkers bought Squares, a range of snacks from Smiths. in. November 2001, more Max flavours were introduced. They included chargrilled steak and chip shop curry.

In May 2002, Walkers launched Sensations. Sensations flavours include Thai Sweet Chilli, Roast Chicken & Thyme, Balsamic Vinegar & Caramelised Onion. Walkers introduced the streaky bacon Quavers flavour to salt & vinegar and prawn cocktail in August 2002.