Willy Chase's Fit Corn Goats Cheese, Red Onion & Thyme

Oh dear. I don't think this popcorn was a success with the reluctant taste testers.

Put it like this: Noble Friend refused to try (she doesn't like goats cheese), Tall Elegant taste tester spat hers out (she doesn't like goats cheese either), and Giraffe Fan (who loves goats cheese) did not go back for more. I confess I wasn't mad keen myself.

The problem is that the popcorn itself isn't nice. The texture is all wrong. It should be light and fluffy with a light quick crunch. And it isn't.

And the flavour... to be frank I don't think the flavour is goats cheese. Some sort of cheese maybe, yes, some sort of cheese with herbs. Dutch taste tester said she felt it could be a good flavour for a crisp. But not for popcorn. I think perhaps she's right.

This is a real shame. I wanted to like this popcorn. It seems to be doing all the right things. Or is it?

The packet tells me this product of free from gluten, frying, wheat, peanuts, MSG, GM/Frankenstein, twee stories, and guilt.

Honestly I would not normally expect gluten, wheat, peanuts or MSG with my popcorn. This is air popped so I see how you can eliminate any suspicion of frying. Getting rid of twee stories is easy, and I don't fee guilt when I try a crispy snack. So basically I am pleased to know there is no GM corn in this packet. But come on, don't congratulate yourself for not adding ingredients that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's like saying this popcorn contains no fish. Of course it doesn't; and fish popcorn sounds horrible. Oh dear. I hope no-one invents that!

Is this me being grumpy and difficult? Probably. But I feel disappointed that this obviously carefully made product is not as good as it should be.

Tesco Finest Goats Cheese & Sticky Chilli Jam Crisps

I was pleased to find this "feature flavour" because I've been wanting to try goat's cheese flavour crisps. I know you can get them in Belgium (although these were described as simply chevre which I suppose could mean goat rather than goat's cheese... no, not really) and France but I've yet to see any to buy. I hope if I do come across them they will be better than these crisps.

The secondary description is creamy goats' cheese from Devon with sweet and sticky jam for a spicy kick. Well, yes..... sort of.

These are great big crisps. Some of them as large as the palm of my hand. A very good crunch and quite a lot of dark orange flavour dust. But the flavour. Oh dear. What a disappointment.

I can hardly detect the goat's cheese. There's a sort of faint breath of what is probably the cheese, a little like some of the sour cream flavours. And the chilli is almost entirely overtaken by the extreme sweetness of the jam. Which is very very sweet. I wasn't mad keen on the Spiced Bramley Apple flavour crisps which you can read about here. And I'm not much struck by these either.

It's an interesting time to launch a goat's cheese crisp. Both the Telegraph and The Guardian have published articles recently about the great goat's cheese shortage of 2014; read the Guardian article here. But perhaps "feature flavour" indicates a limited edition crisp? Possibly more limited than Mr Tesco was anticipating.

There is nothing at all the matter with these crisps except that I don't like the flavour. Call me picky but I don't get this thing for sweet crisps at all.

This packaging detail is charming though and I very much like the idea of a field called Angus. Is the next door field called Richard I wonder?