Our unique chips

The history of the crisp

Thanks to Jonas Alströmer, George Crum, potatoes, the deep fryer and many others on the way to the very first crisps. We enjoy the good life thanks to your initiative and imagination. Here is a bit of crisp history for the curious.

Jonas Alströmer, one of the leading lights of the industrial revolution and a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ with a keen interest in agriculture, brought potatoes to Sweden from France in the 1720s. He grew crops on his farm, Nolhaga, outside Alingsås. He called the potatoes ‘nolor’ or ‘jordpäron’. The words ‘jordpäron’ or ‘päror’ are still in use in Skåne where people also use the old expression ‘panntoffler’, which probably comes from the Danish ‘kartoffler’ and German ‘Kartoffel’. Alströmer carried out extensive experimental cultivation on his farm, Nolhaga, and his research findings about growing and storing potatoes are considered to be groundbreaking for the establishment of potatoes in Sweden.

History also tells us that the potato crisp was invented in the summer of 1853 in Saratoga Springs in New York by the chef, George Crum, at a restaurant called Moon’s Lake House. Frying potatoes was common in the USA at that time, and it was not such a big step from fried chips to crisps. The potatoes were sliced extra thinly, they developed a completely different structure and hey presto, the very first crisps saw the light of day.

At first crisps were served in restaurants, where they were eaten with a knife and fork, but in the 1890s crisps began to be manufactured and sold in grocery stores as well.

The deep fryer was invented in 1929 and crisps started to be manufactured on a larger scale. A few years later crisps were being packaged in sturdy waxed packaging that increased their shelf life and made it possible for them to be distributed over wider areas. In 1921 crisps arrived in Britain and spread slowly through Europe, but production really got going in a serious way when the deep fryer came to Europe in the 1950s. That was when the first factories were opened. Britain was the first to launch flavoured crisps, and in the 1960s people experimented with all sorts of different flavours. It was around this time that the modern crisp industry took off and we Swedes also came into contact with crisps on our travels abroad. Immediately after that we were finally able to buy crisps here in Sweden.