Walkers Snack Foods Limited,[9] trading as Walkers, is a British snack food manufacturer operating in the Great Britain and Ireland markets. The company manufactures potato crisps and snack foods both under its own brand and others, and are the largest crisp manufacturer in Britain.[10][11] Walkers was founded in 1948 in Leicester, England, by Henry Walker. The Walkers family sold the business in 1970 to American food producer Standard Brands.[12] Since 1989, Walkers has been under ownership of PepsiCo, owners of US snack brand Frito-Lay.[13][14]
The Walkers factory in Leicester, the largest crisp production plant in the world, produces over 11 million bags of crisps per day, using about 800 tons of potatoes.[15][16] 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.[17] The company sells its namesake Walkers crisps in a variety of flavours, the main three of which are Cheese and Onion (introduced in 1954), Salt and Vinegar (introduced in 1967) and Ready Salted. In addition, Walkers also produce other bagged snacks in its sub-brands including Quavers, Sensations, Wotsits and Monster Munch,[18] and they also produce Doritos among its non-Walkers branded snacks.[19]
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. Walkers has sponsored several events in the British and Irish markets such as the UEFA Champions League and the Super Cup. The company employs over 4,000 people in 15 locations around the UK[20] and the official Walkers website states that an estimated "11 million people will eat a Walkers product every day".[21]
History
In the 1880s, Henry James Walker moved from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire to Leicester 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, Walkers & Sons 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.[2][22]
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.[23] In 1954, the first flavoured crisps were invented by Joe “Spud” Murphy (owner of the Irish company
Marketing
The Walkers logo, featuring a red ribbon around a yellow sun, is noticeably similar to Lay's and derives from the Walkers logo used in 1990.[54] Gary Lineker, the Leicester-born former footballer, has been involved in advertisements with the company since 1995. During the 1990s, Walkers sold limited edition Salt and Lineker and Cheese & Owen crisps featuring the likenesses of Lineker and fellow footballer Michael Owen.[57][58] In 2000, Lineker's Walkers commercials were ranked ninth in Channel 4’s UK wide poll of "The 100 Greatest TV Ads".[59]
In September 2001, Walkers ran a "Moneybags" promotion where £20, £10 and £5 notes were placed in special winning bags. However, two workers at a crisp factory were dismissed after stealing cash prizes from bags on the production line.[60]
Products
Walkers Crisps
The main flavours of Walkers Crisps offered by the company currently are:[74]
• Ready Salted
• Cheese & Onion
• Salt & Vinegar
• Prawn Cocktail
• Roast Chicken
• Smoky Bacon
• Tomato Ketchup
• Pickled Onion
• BBQ Sauce
• Worcester Sauce
• Masala Chicken
• Sticky Teriyaki
• Salt & Shake
Over the years, some flavours have been made available for a short time either because they tied in with special promotions or failed to meet sales expectations.
Popularity
Walkers Snack Foods is the largest seller of savoury snacks in Britain with a market share of 17.3 percent in 2024.[122] According to The Grocer, Walkers is Britain's third biggest grocery brand in 2022 with total sales amounting to £1.25 billion.[123]
In 2002–2003, Walkers crisps was the single "best-selling brand" in the country in all sectors, in terms of sales value. By comparison, Persil main wash placed second, Diet Coke third, Hovis pre-packaged bread fourth, and Andrex toilet tissue fifth.[124]
The company's Walkers Crisps have been the most popular crisp product among Brits for a long time. Of each flavour, as of 2010, Cheese & Onion is the brand's most popular choice, followed by Ready Salted, Salt & Vinegar, Prawn Cocktail, and other flavours following that.[125]
Litter
According to the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, Walkers crisps packets along with Cadbury chocolate wrappers and Coca-Cola cans were the three top brands that were the most common pieces of rubbish found in UK streets in 2013.[131] In December 2018, Walkers launched a recycling scheme for crisp packets after it was targeted by protests on the issue. Three months after its launch more than half a million empty packets were recycled.[132] However, as UK consumers eat 6 billion packets of crisps per year, with Walkers producing 11 million packets per day, the campaign organisation 38 Degrees noted this represents only a small fraction of the number of packets made and sold annually.[21]
See also
External links
References
- Stephen Butt. The History of Leicester in 100 People Amberley Publishing Limited, 30 October 2013, retrieved 15 November 2016^
- Richard Brooks. The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business Oneworld Publications, 9 September 2014, retrieved 15 November 2016^
- Walkers Snack Foods Limited persons with significant control - Find and update company information - GOV.UK