As the chef whose reputation has been built on his ability to confuse and tantalise tastebuds with such confections as crab ice cream and leather purée, Heston Blumenthal would be naturally drawn to a company that depends upon the strange alchemy of suffusing fried potato with the chemical essence of prawn cocktail, ketchup or roast chicken.
But when that company is Walkers Snack Foods Limited, which as part of the Pepsico conglomerate helped generate global profits of £2.8bn last year from the sale of sugary drinks and starchy nibbles, a collaboration between the high priest of molecular gastronomy and an enterprise that sells 11 million packets of crisps in Britain every day takes on a different flavour.
Walkers confirmed yesterday that it is working on a project with Blumenthal, the British cheerleader for melding science with food. The Leicester-based company, which markets 41 different flavours of crisp ranging from ready salted to lamb with Moroccan spices, said details will be announced in the coming weeks but denied reports that the chef is working with it on a "healthy eating"initiative.
Walkers faces stiff competition in Britain's £1.3bn-a-year crisps market, which has returned to steady growth after sales dipped in the late 1990s amid concerns about fat and salt levels. It launched a Sensations range with a variety of exotic flavours to counter the success of "premium"brands such as Kettle Chips.
