Thins is one of the largest brands of savoury snack

potato chips Potato chips (North American English and Australian English; often just chip) or crisp (British English and Hiberno-English) are thin slices of potato (or a thin deposit of potato paste) that has been deep frying, deep fried, baking, baked, ...

currently available in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, and is owned by

Snack Brands Australia Snackbrands (SBA) is one of the largest suppliers of snack foods in Australia and acts as the main competitor to the long established The Smith's Snackfood Company. The company was founded in August 1998 as a subsidiary of parent company Sna ...

(who in turn is owned by

Intersnack Intersnack Group GmbH & Co. KG is a German snack food company that annually produces around 600,000 tonnes of snacks including potato chips, nuts, baked products and specialty snacks. The company made its first potato chips in 1968. The company ...

). The

snack food A snack is a small portion of Human food, food generally Eating, eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including Food packaging, packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at ho ...

is a thinly-sliced variety of potato chip (crisp) and comes in a variety of flavours, including ''Chicken'', ''Original'', ''Salt & Vinegar'', ''BBQ Ribs,'' ''Cheese & Onion'', ''Sour Cream & Chives'' and ''Light & Tangy''. Thins compete chiefly with Smith's Thinly Cut, another thinly sliced potato chip, along with various crinkle cut brands. The Thins brand has undergone several ownership changes throughout its history. Originally owned by Arnott's, the brand was sold to

The Smith's Snackfood Company The Smith's Snackfood Company is a British-Australian snack food brand owned by the American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation PepsiCo. It is best known for its brand of potato crisps. The company was founded by Frank Smith a ...

shortly after Arnott's was bought by the

Campbell Soup Company The Campbell's Company (doing business as Campbell's and formerly known as the Campbell Soup Company) is an American company, most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products. The classic red-and-white can design used by many Campbe ...

in a hostile takeover bid in 1997. Smith's, in turn, was purchased by

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

and began to re-label the Thins brand jointly with Pepsi's own brand of thin potato chips,

Lay's Lay's (, ) is a brand of potato chips with different flavors, as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in the United States. The brand is also referred to as Frito-Lay, as both Lay's and Fritos are brands sold by the ...

. It was sold under the moniker ''Thins: now known internationally as

''. Smith's later sold Thins to Snack Foods Limited but continued to produce its own line of potato chips under the ''Lay's'' brand name. For a while, there were two competing lines of potato chips released in Australia that were effectively the same product and even shared similar packaging since the Thins packet design was based on the Lay's packaging in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. In 2002, Snack Foods Limited was purchased by Arnott's, and, for a time, the Thins brand was returned to the company that created it. Smith's produced a line of potato chips under the Lay's brand for a brief period until it was eventually rebranded as Smith's Crisps (now Smith's Thinly Cut), and the traditional Smith's line was renamed Smith's Crinkle Cut. Thins is still sold in Australia as a direct competitor to Smith's Chips.

References

External links

Thins Website
Snack Brands Australia brands Brand name potato chips and crisps {{food-product-stub