The last time you travelled abroad, you may have spotted that Walkers crisps go by a different name outside of Britain.
Since they were first created by Henry Walker in 1948, they have grown to become major snack brand, accounting for an impressive 56 per cent of the British crisp market in 2013.
Many Brits will recognise the popular snack by its distinctive logo, which shows a yellow sun emblazoned with a red ribbon reading ‘Walkers‘. But overseas, the crisp packets read ‘Lays’ instead, leaving fans on the internet questioning why this contradiction exists.
The reason for this peculiar mismatch can be traced to the snack’s commercial history. In 1970, the Walker family sold its business to the American food producer Standard Brands. Then 19 years later, the company was acquired by Frito-Lay, the owner of Lay’s and a division of PepsiCo. The popularity of Walkers in the UK and Ireland meant that the product retained its original name there, where Walkers was a firmly established brand.
But others suggest that the difference in names may also be due to subtle differences between Walkers and Lays crisps., the Mirror reports.
A statement on specialist retailer website One Pound Crisps explains: “Walkers crisps and Lays crisps are not exactly the same things, although they are very similar. Both brands offer a range of potato chips and savoury snacks, and they are both owned by the same parent company, PepsiCo. However, there are some differences between the two brands.
“They offer similar products in terms of potato crisps and savoury snacks, but they may have differences in flavours, packaging, and other aspects of their products. The main difference between Walkers crisps and Lays crisps is that they are marketed under different names in different parts of the world.
“Walkers is the brand name used in the UK and Ireland, while Lays is the brand name used in most other countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.”
An upvoted Quora user shared their own verdict: “The brand that came first was Lays. Walkers, a very successful crisp brand that Americans wanted to copy and bring over to the States due to its success in the UK and amongst their American Soldiers.
“Once Pepsi bought the English company Walkers and the American company Lays, they had a meeting on the name and which to adopt. They found that the name Walkers was too hard for non-native/fluent English speakers to say due to the W, K and R.
“Many people struggle to pronounce these letters in non-English speaking countries and that made international branding much harder. They [Pepsi] decided to keep the name Walkers in Britain where the concept of these crisps came from but all international sales would be called ‘Lays’ from now on, retaining the original 1930 Lays company name.
“The truth is the only reason Lays name still exists is marketing reasons.”
Echoing this, a Reddit user added: “Frito-Lay bought Walkers, a separate company at the time, in 1989. Because Walkers had 41 years of brand-name recognition, it was kept as the name… people in the UK already knew and were familiar with that brand.”
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