The potato chip industry in Germany was established approximately 50 years ago. The idea of mass production came from two separate trips to the US. Both trips led to the founding of lucrative family businesses which became highly recognizable in the European snack industry: Intersnack Knabber-Gebäck GmbH & Co KG and Lorenz Bahlsen Snack-World GmbH & Co KG. Both companies hold several well-known brands.
By Barbara Zec
The privately owned Intersnack Group is one of the leading manufacturers of savory snacks in Europe. Their most popular potato-chips brands in Germany are Chio, funny-frisch and Pom-Bär.
Chio Chips was created in 1962 by the von Opel family. The name Chio originates from the first letters of their names: Carlo, Heinz and Irmgard von Opel.
“Girly” chips
Last year they launched Chio Exxtra Deep line with two new flavours, Sweet Chili and Grilled. It is a premium line of a very thick and wavy cut potato, packaged in very dark brownish-black bags. Somewhat unusual choice of colour, but it gave the product good and straightforward look.
The brand also relaunched special edition of gender-specified snack girls’ night – Creamy Paprika and boys’ night – Flamed BBQ. According to Chio, girls prefer mild notes, while boys love intense flavours and meat.
It would be interesting to find out did this move repel men from buying the “girly” chips, and the other way round, because the pictograms on the packages were unambiguous – crossed female and male pictograms saying “just for men” and “just for women”.
It was a smart move to build media coverage, but, with the rise of gender equality awareness, pretty risky one.
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Batch-fried chips
The story of the funny-frisch, the Intersnack’s most popular snack brand in Germany, starts in the 1968 with the introduction of the classic paprika flavoured “Chipsfrisch Hungarian style potato chips”.
The first bag of classic Chipsfrisch was made with red and green colours. These colours are later applied on funny-frisch logotype, with white letters and border stroke. The colours of the package were made darker and more saturated, which allowed bright yellow brand name Chipsfrisch and the pictures of chips to pop-out.
Another funny-frisch brand is Kessel Chips. It is a newer of kettle type chips range. They launched it as an answer to the demands of the consumers for premium and healthier snacks. They are thicker and crunchier than regular chips and are cooked individually in batches rather than in a standard continuous flow machine.
This kind of potato chips is usually packaged in bags with mat finish. The design of this “culinary delight” follows the story of premium product with earthly, soft colours and “rustic” typography.
