Pringles are crisps - it's official
They say politics and religion are the two subjects guaranteed to turn a saloon bar debate into a brawl, but publicans know that the subject of snacks can also spark passionate feelings.
The latest snack-based controversy is not over the relative merits of smokey bacon compared to prawn cocktail flavour, but over the legal status of Pringles, the snack in a tube stocked by many pubs.
It has taken three Court of Appeal judges to confirm what many snack enthusiasts already suspected - Pringles are a type of crisp.
Pringles brand owner Procter and Gamble (P&G) had insisted that Pringles did not have enough potato in them to qualify as a crisp.
The company had good reason to make its claim - while most food products are VAT-exempt, potato crisps and similar snacks are subject to the tax.
The debate has already moved from a VAT Tribunal, which ruled Pringles were a crisp, to the High Court, which supported P&G's contention that there was not enough potato in the snack's recipe for it to qualify as a crisp.
The Court of Appeal judges have now rejected the High Court's ruling and ordered P&G to cough up for the VAT due on Pringles.
The ruling will cost the company an estimated £20m a year - far from small potatoes.
- For the record the Pringles recipe includes around 43 per cent dehydrated potatoes. The other ingredients in regular Pringles are vegetable oil, vegetable fat, corn flour, wheat starch, maltodextrin, emulsifier: E 471, salt, rice flour,and dextrose.
