Man…what happened to Utz?? I recently bought two bags of Grandma Utz’ kettle cooked potato chips (a favorite). One to put away and the other to snarf down on with a sandwich. The chips in the first bag tasted horrible. Then I looked more closely. The bag now says “Kettle-Style”.

Uh-Oh. The bag used to say “Hand Cooked”. So now “Kettle-Style” joins the Assembly Of Foodstuffs That Are Not What You Think They Are. Cheese Food Product. Lemonade Flavored Drink. Hershey’s Chocolate.

I dumped most of that bag of potato chips thinking okay maybe I just got a bad batch. But the second bag was no better. I double checked the sell-by date and that bag was supposed to be good until September. I’m tossing it nearly full because it is just uneatable.

A friend was complaining some months ago that in his opinion Utz was using a new cooking oil that tasted rancid. I just thought he’d got a bad batch, or that his aging taste buds were going rogue on him.

Maybe that’s my problem. But I think not. American corporations care more about what Wall Street thinks of them then their customers. Something was changed not to improve the product, but to improve the bottom line for Wall Street. That’s sad. Utz used to be my go-to potato chip. Nobody, absolutely nobody made them as good as Utz. That is, until I discovered the ones Trader Joe’s sold. Guess where I’m going this morning…

[Update…] Another good place to get potato chips that don’t taste like they’ve been fried in furniture polish is your local Amish market if you have one. There is one in Cockeysville just up I-83 from me, and also one in York PA.