Metcalfe's Skinny Popcorn Sweet 'n Salt

I read that the great British public is buying fewer crisps (sales are down from £1.39 billion to £1.34 billion) but popcorn (sales are up from £50 million to £129 million). These figures seem to be from 2010 to 2015.

You can see for yourselves that crisps are still massively in the lead but that popcorn sales are definitely up. I wonder why that is?

It could be that there is suddenly a bunch of companies selling interesting new flavours of popcorn. Although I can't say why these companies all suddenly leaped into the popcorn market. These things do sometimes happen.

However, some people think that popcorn is simply a bit more healthy than your average crisp and that's why "young people" are drawn to it instead ye olde packet of crisps that everyone has been eating for the past 50 odd years.

That may be so. Particularly in the case of this Skinny Popcorn which is carefully designed to light and at the same time moreish and filling and has only 115 calories per packet. Of course it does have salt (bad for you) and sugar (bad for you) but the packet tells me this is a light, sporty portion. With a delicious natural flavour.

Not bad. Perfectly OK popcorn, a little bit salty a little bit sugary. But not madly exciting. To be honest, the reluctant taste testers and I felt the flavour was just a little bit cardboardy.

Still, it's a gentle and low(ish) calorie popcorn and probably better for you then many crispy snacks on the market.