Lay’s next potato chip will taste like chicken and waffles, according to the Frito-Lay company. Or, it could taste like cheesy garlic bread or Sriracha, a hot sauce often used in Thai dishes.
Lay’s is having its potato chip customers decide which one of the three will be its newest flavor. All of them will be sold at retailers nationwide starting next week. After tasting the new chips, consumers will have until May to vote for their favorite version. The flavor with the most votes will stay on store shelves.
But, if the other two flavors sell well, they may remain in stores, too, said Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay. Lay’s Chicken & Waffles, Cheesy Garlic Bread, and Sriracha were suggested by three people through the company’s “Do Us a Flavor” campaign. A panel of chefs and flavor experts looked through about 3.8 million submissions and selected about 20 flavors to prototype. From there, the judges picked the three finalists. Mukherjee said that each dish was cooked in the test kitchen and compared with the flavored chip. The person who submitted the winning flavor will win $1 million, or one percent of the chip’s 2013 sales, whichever is more. The runners-up will win $50,000.
