New Wise Foods Potato Chip flavors inspired by Food Trucks

If you've been to a deli or grocery store in the past, oh, lifetime or so, you've probably noticed that potato chips come in a staggering variety of exotic (and frequently bizarre) flavors. Otherwise just have a look here

Ketchup, crab, pickle, biscuits and gravy, baby back ribs—all are tastes dusted onto some of the estimated 1.5 billion pounds of potato chips Americans crunch down each year.

But at a time when a mango habanero chip is no more surprising than an ancho chili cheeseburger chip, how is any snack brand supposed to stand out?

Wise Foods has hit on one way—or, you might say, parked on one.

The 95 year-old brand's latest two flavors, beef barbacoa tacos and loaded chili cheese dog, are part of a new line called Food Truck Favorites, which, as the name suggests, come from two regionally recognized food trucks: Boston's Northeast of the Border and the legendary Papaya King in New York.

These are two of the more popular roving restaurants that, as a category, are forecast to dish out some $2.7 billion in sales by next year.

A popular food-truck dish, the reasoning goes, can make a popular chip.

Jeremy Bjork, Wise Foods CMO:
 

"As a consumer, I love food trucks—I lived off them in business school."

"So when we were starting to taste different flavors being developed, I started to think: How do you tie all these together?"

"And the first thing that popped into my head was food trucks. They have such a wide variety of flavors, some very exotic, and consumers love them."

Simon Thorneycroft, founder and CEO of Perspective: Branding, which designed the Food Truck Favorites packaging:
 

"This is personal and local, which fits perfectly with Food Truck culture and allows Wise to participate in a sense of brand community."

"It's a smart way for them to build their portfolio—personalized taste experiences to build loyalty at a grass-roots level."

Now that Wise has that formula down, expect more flavors (inspired by more food trucks) to make their debuts.

Jeremy Bjork: "We want to make sure we refresh this every six months."