Joe & Seph's Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Mozzarella, Tomato & Pepper Popcorn

The finest air popped corn coated with extra virgin oil oil, mozzarella, tomato & pepper.  Aromatic & creamy with a splendidly peppery finish says the packaging.

For once in a while this Joe & Seph's popcorn does not feature caramel. And probably a good thing too. But in my opinion it isn't nice.

The aroma is nothing but olive oil and the popcorn is all squishy.

The reluctant taste testers didn't try this. I did. And I really didn't like it.

Sorry Joe & Seph.

And another mystery. As I pondered yesterday, why didn't we like this popcorn? Because we loved the Caramel & Sea Salt. We really did.

M Signature Limited Edition Mozzarella & Pesto Hand Cooked Crisps

This packet of crisps was brought into the office by the senior taste tester who I suppose shops at Morrisons.

I don't usually shop there, but I see they do a number of own brand crispy snacks so I might take a bus in a Northerly direction in the not too distant future to see what they have in stock. Or as the TV commercials so odiously put it these days "in store".

So the senior taste tester set out a bowlful of crisps. Some of the the reluctant taste testers really liked this flavour, and some of them didn't.

Someone said they were very good and just exactly like pesto. And someone else said the taste was all chemically and horrible and she didn't like them at all.

I have to admit that to me they tasted so exactly like the brand of pesto I have decided I really dislike that I fall into the not liking them camp. Plus there wasn't much evidence of mozzarella which is a great shame.

Nice looking crisps, good dark golden colour, but a much harder crunch than I was expecting.

It definitely would be worth trying other flavours if I can find them.

Kettle Chips Mozzarella & Pesto

It says here on the package that Mozzarella & Pesto is a seasonal flavour. I checked on the website and it is; a special flavour for summer. So it's a bit odd that I never noticed these crisps until October. However, the bright green packet is very cheerful and summery, and extremely welcome on a dreich day like today.

These are pretty good for a (presumably) limited edition season crisp. Good crunch and texture, really large crisps, lots of flavour dust, good colour with little herby bits of basil and parsley. In fact I think they rate a "yum".

I bought these to try because I love mozzarella (if I get grossly fat one of the reasons will probably be overindulging in this superb cheese) and I wanted to see how the guys at Kettle managed to get a crisp to taste of mozzarella. I think they've done a pretty good job. I can't really find a way of describing it but there really does seem to be a mozzarella taste. The pesto part of the taste doesn't strike me as being particularly pesto-y although Lauren at work disagrees with me here. She was very impressed at the size: "is this all one crisp?" she wondered, carrying off what looked like an A4 slice of kettle fried potato. I wasn't fussed that the crisps don't seem to taste of pesto because in fact I don't care for it much.

You know, I always thought I liked pesto. But every time I ate it I ended off a little dissatisfied and not very happy with my dinner. It seems to work fairly OK in a sandwich with a load of other flavours but after yet another unsatisfactory pesto & pasta dinner I decided I don't like pesto much. So I'm not going to buy it again.

So not a very pesto-y taste, but at the same time an extremely tasty, in fact yummy, taste and I would be happy to recommend these to anyone who fancies the idea.

These crisps are hand cooked using traditional methods, are suitable for vegetarians, and contain no artificial ingredients. They do contain dried whey (from milk), dried buttermilk (from milk), dried mozzarella cheese (from milk), dried cheese (from milk), dried butter (from milk), and dried cream (from milk). And then the ingredients list says: contains milk. So if you have a problem with milk probably these are best avoided.

The Kettle Chips company was sold to a private equity group called Lion Capital LLP in 2006. According to Wikipedia there was a scandal involving water pollution in California (2008), and union busting issues in the UK (2007). Since 2010 the company has been owned by Diamond Foods which suffered an accounting scandal in 2012. This is a shame because the original Kettle Chips company used green energy and won awards for environmental design. I'd rather buy crisps from an environmentally friendly company than one that... well, they don't have a very good reputation.