Burger King Ketchup And Fries Potato Flavored Snacks
Fun Fact: Burger King shares its surname with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”
Recommended TOE: Before, not after, a Purell High Five
“I know BK would prefer me not to compare their snack to Doritos, but I’m going to, because that’s my job.”
Last year, Eric Kufel, the CEO of a company that owns BK’s chip line, made his position very clear on the attitude of Burger King potato flavored snack products.
“We’ve got our own business objectives,” Kufel said to USA today. “You’ll never see me interested in how Burger King Ketchup & Fries stacks up against Doritos in some Nielsen report.”
Whatever these business objectives are, they’ve sure paid off. When I sunk my pristine digits into a ketchup flavored batch of Burger King snack product, it was like going mud diving after taking a shower – all encompassing to the point where regret wasn’t even a glimmer in my eye. Before I knew it, I had eaten half of the recommended three serving bag, my hands coated in a mixture as ambiguous as Kufel’s business objectives.
I know BK would prefer me not to compare their snack to Doritos, but I’m going to, because that’s my job. Texturally, these snacks were never meant to be touched by hand or tooth. They spread whatever coats them on your hands with fervor I’ve never seen in Doritos, and feel like thin strips of Styrofoam during the mastication phase.
Despite all this, the initial flavor is a wonderfully synthetic barrage of acidic ketchup flavor, which hangs around for the time it takes to make two full chews. By the third or so mouth movement, the unwieldy aftertaste moves in, and can only be quelled by a fresh chip. In this way, BK Ketchup and Fries Potato Flavored Snacks are a bit like Heroin, since nothing ever gets you to the sinful euphoria of the first hit.
By the time the bag was finished, my hands were coated, my mouth was crying for a palate cleanser, and I told myself that I’d never touch these things again. The treacherous back of the bag taunted me one last time with a tragically clever pun as I reached to toss it in the trash. “Keep on chippin’ on.”
-Ben Bernstein
