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Tortilla Chips (Part 3)

I wrote a few blog entries about tortilla chips last July. Costco had been out of stock of Organic Tortilla Chips for a few months, and my personal stock had been out for a few weeks. Costco got some stock only days after my first blog entry, and it sold out quickly. I purchased enough to last until October, when the chips expired. Unfortunately, they have not come back in stock!

Costco has recently started selling two other brands of tortilla chips, which makes me worry that the Organic Tortilla Chips may not return to stock any time soon. I have not purchased either of the alternative brands…

One is branded as “Black’s Family” and distributed by a company called Poppy Industries. (I would link to the company, but their website is down!) There are two varieties: blue corn and white corn, both of which are unfortunately salted. They look worth a try, but they are way too expensive. A bag weighing 624g is sold for 1,098 yen, which is 176 yen per 100g. That is getting close to Kaldi prices! I found a review that has photos.

The other is Old El Paso tortilla chips. This brand is owned by General Mills, a huge corporation. Old El Paso products are quite common in Japan (as seen on Amazon). They are all made in Australia, and I have found that they are consistently terrible! (The salsa even has sugar in it! Even Japanese salsa does not have sugar in it. The chips are of course salted.) I have learned to never purchase this brand, so I will not purchase the chips without first verifying that the taste is not terrible, which unlikely since samples are no longer given out due to the pandemic. Ten bags weighing 185g each are sold for 1,980 yen, which is 107 yen per 100g. That is almost twice the price that the Organic Tortilla Chips were sold.

On a related note, my wife gave me a bag of Kaldi unsalted chips on Christmas. I had been without chips since October, so it was a good gift! The taste was not as good as I remembered, but they were still better than the Organic Tortilla Chips.