What makes Pipers crisps stand out in a crowd?

When three potato-farming friends set about making the highest quality hand-crafted crisps in bold and carefully sourced flavours, they shook up the crisp world.

Two decades on, their Pipers dream has gone from strength to strength and still works with and supports local growers that give the product its unique and distinctive flavours.

There are nine to be exact, all gluten free and ranging from the exotic sounding Atlas Mountains Wild Thyme and Rosemary to the Great Berwick Longhorn Beef.

But every recipe in the range, including Kirkby Malham Chorizo and Upton Cheyney Jalapeño and Dill, has one thing in common – they’re made from the actual product and not flavourings.

Time-honoured techniques

That was the case when Pipers partnered with Halen Môn, a small family-run business providing the vital ingredient in the Anglesey Sea Salt bags using a centuries old technique.

Their crystallised salt, hand harvested daily from the Menai Strait in northwest Wales, boasts the same protected designation of origin as Champagne and creates an elevated interpretation of the classic ready salted crisp.

Jess Lea-Wilson, Marketing Director at the company founded by parents David and Alison, says a saucepan of seawater left to boil on their stove in 1997 helped rediscover the pure crunchy white flakes.

“It’s a meticulous process which involves seawater passing through two natural filters of a mussel bed and a sandbank before being heated in a vacuum at a low temperature and then crystallising in shallow tanks,” she says.

“Once the crystals have formed, we harvest the sea salt by hand and rinse the flakes in brine until they shine. There are no short cuts and the flakes in the 25kg bags we deliver to Pipers taste pure, clean and not harsh – completely different to normal salt.”