The market price for Frito-Lay’s take on the New England lobster roll is sure to beat out that of any seaside shack this summer.
The popular PepsiCo-owned chip enterprise is rolling out eight limited-edition, regionally-inspired chip flavors this summer, among them some seafood-themed munchies including the New England Lobster Roll and Chesapeake Bay Crab Spice. Cajun Spice, Chili con Queso, Deep Dish Pizza, Fried Pickles with Ranch, Pimento Cheese, and Sweet Thai Chili are the other flavors included in the Lay’s campaign.
The new chips are part of Lay’s “Tastes of America” program, which aims to present boldly-flavored snacks that “represent distinctive tastes from across the country.” Starting on 30 July and lasting until 23 September, the chip flavors will become available on retail shelves – but only in the region that inspired each seasoning.
Lay’s and Food Network star Hannah Hart will be traveling to different hometown food festivals to celebrate each flavor of the limited-edition chip series as well. From 1 to 5 August, the company and Hart will be in Rockland, Maine highlighting the New England Lobster Roll flavor during the Maine Lobster Festival, the Portland Press Herald reported.
During a pre-rollout tasting of the new chips, People Magazine’s testers expressed surprise – and perhaps dismay – at the mild seafood notes in the Chesapeake Bay Crab Spice offering.
“These chips get their flavor from a custom-blend of Old Bay and other spices, most of which our tasters didn’t actually notice. Although some tasters got hints of seafood in the chips’ smell, the crab-boil flavor isn’t as prominent as we imagined it would be,” the magazine wrote.
As for the New England Lobster Roll chips, People’s testers seemed similarly unconvinced of whether the flavor could be considered true to form.
“As the second seafood flavor in the lineup and inspired by lobster shacks in the northeast, Lay’s wanted to bring the 'flavor of fresh lobster served on a buttery grilled roll' to their chips. However, these chips taste more like they’re flavored with sour cream (not a bad thing, but not quite buttery enough to call it a lobster roll). And even though they have a faint seafood-y scent, we didn’t pick up on the sweet lobster flavor as much as we hoped to,” according to People.
