Hot chips: comfort food set for post-lockdown comeback

THE HUMBLE HOT CHIP OR FRENCH FRY is set to be one of the most popular ‘comeback foods’ post lockdown, says chef Adam Moore. “They’re such a staple of foodservice – from the corner takeaway to the pub or club, café or restaurant, chips are a great everyone and part of almost everyone’s meal at one time or another, so I think people have been missing really them.”

Adam predicts that as businesses begin to reopen, loaded fries will be back in fashion – “I think we’ll see them loaded up like a burger, with cheese, sauce and additions like pulled pork. They’ve been in and out of fashion for a long time but right now I think people will be going back to them as one of the ultimate comfort foods.” 

With so many cuts, styles and shapes of chips on the market, it can be tricky to make the right choice for your business. “Pubs or clubs may go for a beer battered product, burger chains may be looking for something a little more rustic as a point of difference, whereas takeaways or food courts often go for a shoestring which is a popular eating fry packed full of flavour – it really depends on your menu and customer demographic,” Adam says. “Popularity also varies across states – in Victoria they seem to like a chunkier chip, whereas you see a lot of beer battered in NSW and shoestring in WA, and that probably harks back to what was the predominant style in days when there wasn’t the widespread availability of different options that we have today.”

At Toukley RSL on the NSW central coast, chef Alex Patterson says the chunkier cut of Edgell Steak Fries is popular with club members. “If you have a chunkier chip like a Steak Fry, they’re great to serve with a burger – we cook them fresh and sprinkle them with our own Rosemary Salt seasoning and they hold up very well. I love shoestring fries myself but they don’t hold their heat as long, and it’s important in the club environment that when our meals reach customers their chips are still hot. So it’s a question of choosing the right chip for the job.”

Markus Werner, Corporate Executive Chef at Delaware North Australia, agrees. “If you’re in an a la carte restaurant you want a chip that’s as close to from-scratch as possible. In a food outlet where they’re sitting for 10 to 15 minutes under a heat lamp before being picked up, a coated chip may be a better choice so it’s still crisp when it reaches the customer. Around 90 per cent of our venues use a 10mm chip, we also have some which use shoestring and others with a farm cut. Some of our outlets are also making their own, using potatoes through a press, and that tastes amazing – sometimes the simplest things are the best. You need to use the right potatoes – we’re pressing and blanching them on the premises, then frying up.”

While hot chips have long been problematic choices for home delivery, due to difficulties in ensuring they can retain heat and crunch over an extended delivery window, recent innovations in product development mean this is no longer an issue.

Edgell’s Supa Crunch Delivery Chip, which it touts as “crunchy to the last bite”, boasts a superior hold time of up to 40 minutes during delivery, and a whopping 60 minutes under heat lamps – and also has a specially designed box to provide a total delivery system, featuring a raised base which locks in crunchiness, vents to release steam (thus preventing sogginess), and a tamper proof seal as a guarantor of quality.

“Even before the trading restrictions imposed by COVID-19, we have seen a huge growth in home delivery platforms,” says David White, Executive Chef at Simplot Australia which markets the Edgell brand. “Once we realised this was not going to be a short-lived fad, we decided to create the ultimate delivery chip. I spoke to many foodservice operators to identify their key pain points – one was that while they try to deliver within 20 minutes, food sometimes takes twice as long to reach customers, especially when they’re using a third party delivery platform.

“So a delivery chip needs to retain its hold time not just for 20 minutes but 40. Consumers want their chips to reach them in good quality and when ordering from a platform like Uber their choice is often dictated by the star rating for chips.

“We realised we also needed to offer a ‘backup’ in the event of extra-long delivery, which is that the chips are microwavable as well. So on the box it says ‘Chips a little bit cold? Microwave for 20 seconds’ – and they’re back to tip top condition. We’ve been able to tick all the boxes and give operators a chip that will stand up under these circumstances.

“People working from home during lockdown has been driving home delivery and sales have really grown as a result. The important point is that if you’re offering the best chips around, you’ll get the customers. Even without our salesforce out on the road at the moment, we’ve been seeing businesses switch to the Delivery Chip because they’ve been restricted to that channel and they need to be able to offer a product which holds up.”