January 29, 2021 Ranking (Big Chip)

Ranking of "Big Chip" brands as of January 29, 2021

It has been a crazy week, fam, so I’m sure you are looking for some chips for comfort. Fear not, welcome to week 3 of chiprankings. I apologize this issue is coming out a few days late - thank you for your patience. If you want to know what the best chip in existence is, make sure you check out Week 2 if you haven’t already!

To round out the first 3 posts of chiprankings, I will be doing an overview of “Big Chip” Brands this week. What do I mean by “Big Chip” Brands? I mean, if you find yourself in the chip aisle of a Walgreens or CVS at 1am (shout out to #TMTeam), which chip should you buy and what should you consider. What is “Big Chip”? It’s the name of my Animal Crossing island, but also the powerful incumbent chip cabal.

My Animal Crossing Island

Five things to consider before heading into this week’s rankings:

1. Remember, always choose Miss Vickie’s if you can (see Week 2)

2. 8 out of 10 times I would choose a Kettle Brand Chip over a Big Chip Brand chip. However, I would NOT be likely to choose a kettle chip made by a Big Chip Brand over the ones I am listing below

3. In general, I have found that people know half of big chip brands twice as much as they would like, but eat less than half of them half as much as they deserve

4. I am ranking potato-based chips only. You will see many kinds of chips on Walgreens/CVS shelves. For example, corn-based (Sun Chips, Doritos, Tortilla, etc.), pretzel-based, cheese-based-ish (Goldfish, Cheez-its, etc.), and honestly-who-knows-what based (Cheetos, Funyuns, Veggie Crisps (probs not veggies) etc.). There are rankings to be made for all of these categories - make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss these in the future

5. I will specifically mention if I am referring to a Baked chip or not. But in general, Baked potato chips are worse. You’re already eating a chip, don’t try and kid yourself with a “healthier” chip (even though I sometimes do)

Here are the rankings this week:

1. Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream. This is the chip that made me fall in love with chips when I was a young seven-year-old ordering from the snack bar or vending machine at the ice rink. I grew up continually longing for Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream chips. If you’ve never had this chip, you need to go try it right now. You can find it literally anywhere. I will sponsor you to try this chip (Venmo charge me, I’m serious)

2. Lay’s BBQ. This was my other go-to from the ice rink snack bar. I would alternate between Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream and Lay’s BBQ. The BBQ is sweet but not too much so. Lay’s has nailed this one. Side note: Lay’s chips in general are noticeably light after acclimating to the sharp crunch of a kettle chip

3. Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion. Another incredibly classic chip. The flavor of Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion is the best sour cream and onion out there

4. Lay’s Ketchup (Canada only). You might be thinking “ketchup on a chip is so random,” but come on, you dip fries in ketchup

5. Any other Lay’s flavor (potato chip). You can always count on Lay’s, except when they put out this marketing campaign. I actively avoided Lay’s when this campaign was out because I was so horrified by it:

   

6. Probably any other Ruffles flavors. I will never try any other Ruffles flavor outside of Cheddar and Sour Cream, but I have faith that a Big Chip brand with a flavor as good as Cheddar and Sour Cream will not let you down

7. Baked Chips. I’m talking the Lay’s, Ruffles, etc. Baked flavors. I have actively chosen to have Baked versions of the top flavors above but only in scenarios where I had eaten 5 consecutive days of some kind of fried or fast food for lunch/dinner (shout out to Arby’s) and decided I needed “something healthy”. The marketing really works. Kudos.

8. Pringles. In case you were curious, Pringles actually have enough potato in them to count as potato chips. ALSO in case you were curious, Pringles are actually fried even though they have the texture of Baked chips. But these are not your standard potato chips. First of all, they have a weird shape (but great for making duck faces). Second, they have completely gotten rid of the joy of sticking your hand into a wide open chip bag. Third, they’re just kind of meh in terms of flavor/impact (sorry Mom and Dad @P&G)

9. Lay’s Kettle Chips. Too crunchy. You will lacerate the roof of your mouth. You may break a tooth

10. Cape Cod Chips. Avoid these. No flavor

11. Utz. Uhh, wutz are these?

12. Hal’s New York Kettle Chips. Not sure if this is a standard chip on convenience store shelves, but I have word from a trusted subscriber that "these are a miss”

This list would grow very long if I tried to cover everything on these shelves, but my goal here was to give you a few flavors you need to keep an eye out for and a few things to watch out for as you peruse down a chip aisle. Happy Snacking!

Always open to debates on the above. Remember to subscribe and leave a comment below!