"Walkers is irresponsible"

by Kate Pritchard - Friday, 27th June 2008 -

“A couple of years ago, Walkers tried to hit back at claims that it was responsible for rising levels of obesity," says Alex Albone, the founder of Pipers Crisps. "Well, it sure as hell deserves some of the blame."

44-year-old Albone set up Lincolnshire-based Pipers Crisps four years ago and has built it into a £1.3m-turnover business – despite refusing to sell to the major supermarkets.

Although Pipers Crisps are hand cooked in sunflower oil, flavoured with 100 per cent natural ingredients and are GM free, Albone doesn’t claim that his crisps are healthy. “We’re not a health food – and we don’t pretend to be,” he says.

He believes that rival crisp company Walkers uses “irresponsible” marketing tactics.

“In 2006, Walkers started talking about how it had changed its oil. Instead of frying its potatoes in oil that’s high in saturated fat, it switched to oil that was low in saturates and high in monosaturates,” he explains. “Yes, that’s a very admirable thing to do. But Walkers portrayed itself as a hero in its television adverts.

“It doesn’t matter what type of oil you’re using. If you’re filling kids with a high-fat product and they don’t exercise, they'll put on weight,” he says.

"Pipers is a grown-up brand. It's expensive," he says. "I won’t put anything on my website that implies that crisps are a jolly good product for children."

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