CHIP CHIP HOORAY! CHEESE IS BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE CRISP FLAVOUR

• Massive £320m sales put cheese at number one
• Brits spent more than £2bn on crisps in 2014
• Britain’s top twelve crisp flavours: the official data

It’s official – according to the latest sales data, the nation’s favourite crisp flavour is cheese.

Brits bought £320m worth of cheese crisps last year*, putting it ahead of traditional favourites including ready salted, salt & vinegar and BBQ.

To put that into context, £320m could buy more than 129 million tubes of Pringles. Stacked together, they’d reach 32,250km in height – 3,644 times as tall as Mount Everest and a tenth of the way to the moon.

Laid end-to-end, they’d wrap around three quarters of the equator, and at 24,510 tons, they’d weigh the same as 116 Blue Whales.**

The news comes as Pringles seeks to capitalise on the nation’s cheese mania with the launch of its new Cheesy Cheese flavour – the sixteenth Pringles variant to hit shelves.

The famous Pringle shape – “the hyperbolic parabaloid” – makes sure you get a big hit of cheese with every bite, and Pringles Cheesy Cheese should help cement cheese’s number one position on the crisp flavour chart.

Whether it was cheese, cheese and onion (£244m), cheese and bacon or ham and cheese, Brits spent more than half a billion pounds*** on cheese-flavoured crisps in 2014.

The data, from IRI for Pringles, also revealed more fascinating trends in the British crisp market.

Multipacks, which generated £432m in sales in 2012, are on the wane, with £372m sold last year.

BBQ and Beef, up 54 per cent and 24 per cent since 2011, are clearly on the rise, while sour cream is up a staggering 78 per cent over the same period.

But some more experimental flavours are having a tougher time. Herb-flavoured crisps were down 37 per cent over four years, while Jalapeno sales have dipped by 39 per cent. Tomato crisps were down a modest 9 per cent.

And though posh pizza and burger restaurants are all the rage, it seems fewer are enthused by the idea of fast food-inspired crisp. They’re down 97 per cent and 28 per cent respectively.

In more positive news, sausage-flavoured sales are up 398 per cent.

A Pringles spokesperson said: “Brits spent more than £2billion on crisps last year – and more than one in five of those sales was down to cheese.

“Brits can’t get enough of more exotic cuisines such as Indian and Mexican but when it comes to their crisps and snacking they just want to keep it simple. It seems the public is tiring of crazy flavours and just wants something that tastes great, like cheese.

“By launching Pringles Cheesy Cheese, we’re giving shoppers what they want. They’re the perfect party food for people of all ages.”

TOP TWELVE CRISP FLAVOURS

(Value sales for 2014)

1 - Cheese - £320m

2 - Salted - £302m

3 - Cheese & Onion - £244m

4 - Salt & Vinegar - £235m

5 - Hot Pepper/Chili - £149m

6 - BBQ - £98m

7 - Beef - £95m

8 - Fish/Seafood - £91m

9 - Sour Cream & Onion - £72m

10 - Lightly Salted - £71m

11 - Onion - £66m

12 - Bacon - £65m

*Data from IRI for Pringles Cheesy Cheese

**Calculations based on one Pringles tube measuring 25cm in height, with contents weighing 190g.

***£574m