Walkers Crinkles: Discontinued Again and What to Buy Instead

TL;DR: Yes, Walkers Crinkles are discontinued. Walkers confirmed it in April 2026, having stopped production the previous February. This is the second axing in four years, following a 2022 phase-out and a 2024 comeback. Nothing is left in the supply chain, so your closest replacements are Seabrook crinkle cut crisps or Walkers MAX.

Crinkles had a strange life. Biggest crisp launch in five years, £54m in year one, then quietly dropped twice inside four years.

If you have been hunting for them in Tesco and coming up empty, here is exactly what happened, when, and what to buy instead.

Are Walkers Crinkles Discontinued?

Yes. Twice over, in fact.

The 2022 phase-out

Walkers first pulled the Crinkles range in 2022. It went with very little fanfare, alongside a wider cull that also took Worcester Sauce flavour off shelves the same year.

Fans noticed. Walkers said nothing much at the time.

The 2024 comeback

Then Crinkles came back. The range returned to UK stores in 2024, in a smaller line-up sold mainly as small multipacks: Simply Salted and Cheddar Cheese & Onion, in 5x23g and 6x23g packs.

Distribution reached Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Iceland. It looked like a proper reinstatement.

The 2026 axe

It was not. Walkers halted production in February 2026, then confirmed the discontinuation publicly in April.

That means the crisps only remained on shelf while existing stock lasted. Given the announcement landed several months ago, supermarket supply has now gone.

What Walkers Actually Said

The company gave a statement to The Sun. A Walkers spokesperson said Crinkles would soon be leaving shelves after a great run, and that fans could pick from the rest of the line-up instead.

They pointed people towards the new Walkers Baked flavours, Slow Roasted Beef and Sun Dried Tomato & Basil, plus the Walkers MAX range.

The reasoning was the usual one. Evolving the portfolio, the spokesperson said, lets Walkers focus on the flavours people love the most.

Translation: Crinkles were not selling well enough to justify the factory time.

What Walkers Crinkles Actually Were

Worth being clear, because Walkers has run several ridged products and people mix them up.

A thin crinkle cut

Crinkles were thin crinkle-cut potato crisps. They sat at the lighter end of the ridged category, closer to Seabrook than to a chunky ridged crisp.

That mattered commercially. Walkers already had MAX for the thick, deep-ridged market, so Crinkles targeted a different shelf entirely.

Simple ingredients

The Simply Salted version had one of the shortest ingredients lists Walkers has ever put out: potatoes, sunflower and rapeseed oil, salt and antioxidants.

Cheddar Cheese & Onion added dried milk whey, dried onion, sugar and dried cheese from milk. Both were labelled suitable for vegetarians, with no added MSG and no artificial colours.

The original 2011 flavours

The launch range had four:

1. Simply Sea Salted
2. Cheddar & Onion
3. Salt & Malt Vinegar
4. Sweet Chilli

Single 32g bags launched at 43p, with six-packs from £1.59. By the time of the 2024 return the range had shrunk to essentially two flavours.

Why Crinkles Mattered in 2011

The launch was genuinely enormous. This was not a quiet line extension.

The biggest launch in five years

Walkers rolled Crinkles out in April 2011, backed by a multimillion-pound campaign with Gary Lineker fronting the TV ads. PepsiCo billed it as the biggest category launch in five years.

Marketing director Miranda Sambles argued that crinkle cut was an underdeveloped opportunity in the UK. She was right.

The numbers were absurd

Crinkles took £11.7m in its first two months on shelf, according to Nielsen data covering 9 April to 4 June 2011.

More impressively, it grew the whole segment. The thin crinkle-cut sector was worth £5.5m in the eight weeks before the launch, and £17.3m in the eight weeks after. That is more than a trebling.

By the end of the first 12 months, Crinkles had banked £54m in sales.

The Seabrook cloning row

Not everyone was delighted. Branding strategist Claire Nuttall of 1HQ accused Walkers of cloning rival products, arguing it identified key players and built its own version of them.

The target seemed obvious. Seabrook was the established crinkle-cut brand, with sales up 25.1% year on year to £41.6m at the time.

Walkers denied it, pointing out that PepsiCo already sold a similar product in the US called Lay’s Wavy. For the full corporate picture, see who owns Walkers crisps.

Why Did Walkers Discontinue Crinkles?

Sales, almost certainly. A brand that opened at £54m a year does not get cut twice unless the numbers slid a long way.

The portfolio squeeze

Walkers has been pruning aggressively. Smiths Tomato Snaps went. Worcester Sauce went in 2022, came back in 2025 after a stunt in Worcester, and Prawn Cocktail Quavers were axed for a second time in October 2025.

The pattern is consistent. PepsiCo keeps saying the same thing about focusing on the flavours people love most, which is corporate language for cutting the long tail.

Too many ridged options

Walkers also had a crowded ridged shelf. MAX covers thick ridges, Deep Ridged came along in 2013, and Crinkles sat awkwardly between them.

Meanwhile Seabrook and McCoy’s both hold strong positions in that space. Something had to give.

You can read about other casualties in our roundup of discontinued crisps we still miss, and the same story played out with Smiths Snaps.

Can You Still Buy Walkers Crinkles?

Realistically, no. Production ended in February 2026 and clearance stock cleared through the spring.

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Supermarkets no longer list them. Wholesalers have moved on. Any listings you find now will be old stock well past its best before date, or a mislabelled listing for a different Walkers product.

Do not pay over the odds for a resale pack. Crisps go stale, and a bag made over six months ago will not taste like the one you remember.

The Best Walkers Crinkles Alternatives

Here is what actually gets you closest, in order of how similar they are.

1. Seabrook Crinkle Cut. The nearest match by a distance. Same thin crinkle cut, same texture, and Seabrook was doing it before Walkers arrived. Browse Seabrook on Amazon or the Seabrook range on One Pound Crisps.
2. McCoy’s. Deeper ridges and a heavier crisp, so a step up in chunkiness. Strong flavours though. See McCoy’s on Amazon or our McCoy’s category.
3. Walkers MAX. Walkers’ own recommendation. Thicker, ridged, bolder seasoning. Grab Walkers MAX on Amazon or browse the Walkers Max range.
4. Walkers Baked. Lighter and lower in fat, with the newer Slow Roasted Beef and Sun Dried Tomato & Basil flavours. Not ridged, but it is where Walkers is pushing the range now.
5. Standard Walkers. If it was the Simply Salted you missed rather than the ridges, plain Ready Salted has an almost identical ingredients list. Check Walkers crisps boxes on Amazon.

For bulk pricing, eBay usually undercuts the supermarkets. Have a look at Walkers crisps boxes on eBay or Seabrook crisps cases. You can also browse the full Walkers range on One Pound Crisps, or read our complete Walkers guide if you want the whole portfolio in one place.

Will Walkers Crinkles Come Back?

They came back once, so it is not impossible. Walkers has form for reviving things when the noise gets loud enough.

Worcester Sauce is the best example. It vanished in 2022, returned as a one-shop stunt in Worcester in March 2025, then went nationwide after the demand became obvious.

That said, Crinkles have now failed twice. A second axing usually means the brand team has run out of patience, not that they are teeing up another relaunch.

If you want them back, tell Walkers directly on social media. That is exactly how Worcester Sauce got its second life. In the meantime, our guide to buying crisps in bulk will at least keep the cupboard full.