In pursuit of the perfect potato chip

It's a long and winding road in search of the perfect crisp, but a Moutere couple have demonstrated that it can all be worth it. Alastair Paulin reports.

The question of what makes the perfect potato chip sounds like the kind of idle musing that might happen somewhere into the second jug on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

But for the founders of Upper Moutere's Proper Crisps, it turned into a quest that lasted several years and ate up their life savings.

They realised that the hand-cooked potato chip trend, popularised by English brands like Burt's and Tyrell's and hundreds of regional producers in America, had yet to hit New Zealand. "We knew if we didn't do it, somebody else would,"said Stuart.

But they still had to learn how to make chips, or crisps, as they call their snack. They wanted to differentiate themselves from mass-produced chips and besides, said Kathryn, "it's a nice descriptive word that tells you what they're going to be".