Home Today Is Americans Eat Over 6 Pounds Of Potato Chips Per Person Annually

Americans Eat Over 6 Pounds Of Potato Chips Per Person Annually

chip day

America’s #1 snack food is recognized each year on March 14th.  On National Potato Chip Day, this snack will be enjoyed by millions of people across the country.

On August 24, 1853, an unhappy restaurant customer, complaining that his potatoes were too thick and soggy, kept sending them back. Chef George Crum decided to slice the potatoes as thin as possible, frying them until crisp and added extra salt. To the chef’s surprise, the customer loved them, and they soon became a regular item on the restaurant’s menu under the name of “Saratoga Chips.”

The Dayton, Ohio-based Mike-sell’s Potato Chip Company, founded in 1910, calls itself the “oldest potato chip company in the United States.”  New England-based Tri-Sum Potato Chips, originally established in 1908 as the Leominster Potato Chip Company, in Leominster, Massachusetts, claims to be America’s first potato chip manufacturer.

  • In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be mass-produced for home consumption.
  • Flavored chips were introduced in the 1950s.
  • Worldwide, the market value of potato chips is anticipated to reach $40.3 billion by 2022.
  • Americans eat about 1.85 billion pounds of potato chips, or about 6.6 pounds per person annually
  • The average potato chip is .04 to.08 of an inch thick.
  • During WWII production of potato chips halted because they were deemed an “unessential food”
  • in Great Britain, and many other parts of the world, Potato Chips are referred to as “crisps”. Chips, to them are French Fried potatoes.
  • Potato chip bags are only partially filled for a reason: The additional space adds cushioning to prevent breakage.
  • On September 13, 2013, Corkers Crisps set a new world record for the largest single bag of potato chips. The bag measured 18 feet tall and comfortably housed more than 2,515 pounds of chips.
  • Before potato chips were mass-produced and marketed around the world, they were sold in bulk in mom-and-pop shops, where they were served out of wooden barrels or scooped from behind glass counters. It took one enterprising California woman to come up with the concept of pre-bagging the chips, both for freshness and transportability. Laura Scudder, who had opened a potato chip company in 1926, worked hard to perfect her idea. Originally made of waxed paper that was ironed by hand into grease-resistant packets, those first potato chip bags were the forerunners of today’s crinkly foil sacks. 
  • Barbeque chips were the first type of flavored potato chip.
  • The most popular potato chip flavor in America is plain, followed by barbeque, and then sour cream and onion.
  • In the last 50 years, there have been over 100 different varieties of Doritos.
  • Lay’s was the first successfully marketed national brand of potato chip.
  • Making 2,500 pounds of potato chips requires 10,000 pounds of potatoes.
  • Roughly 28,000,000 pounds (13,000,000 kg) of chips are eaten during the Super Bowl
  • Pennsylvania is known as the “Potato Chip Capital” of the world and leads the United States in potato chip production.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Foodimentary

Mobile-Cuisine

Mental Floss

Fact Retriever

Troyer Farms

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