Brannigans crisps are gone. KP Snacks discontinued the brand in September 2020, blamed declining demand, and said at the time there were no plans to make them again. Six years on, nothing has changed. You cannot buy them in a supermarket, a corner shop, a pub or a wholesaler, and anything advertised as Brannigans now is either old stock well past its date or a mislabelled listing. This guide covers what they actually were, why KP pulled them, and what to eat instead if you are still chasing that roast beef and mustard hit.
Few discontinued crisps get remembered like this. Most vanish and people shrug. Brannigans vanished and people started petitions, and they are still signing them. That tells you everything about what the brand was.
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What Brannigans Crisps Were
Brannigans arrived in the 1980s and went straight for the pub. Not the lunchbox, not the multipack, the bar. Thick ridge cut potato crisps, heavily seasoned, sold in bags designed to look like something you would find hanging on a card behind a country pub bar.
The positioning was deliberate. While most of the market was fighting over cheese and onion and ready salted, Brannigans went after adults who wanted something loud enough to stand up to a pint. That is why the flavours were so aggressive, and why people who liked them liked them a lot.
The texture mattered as much as the seasoning. These were chunky, properly rigid crisps with deep ridges that held a heavy dusting of powder. If you want a modern reference point, McCoy’s is the closest thing still in production, which makes sense given both are KP brands. You can browse the full bulk crisp range on Amazon if you want to see what fills that space now.
The Brown Paper Bags
The packaging is half the memory for most people. Brannigans came in a brown, matte, paper-look bag that stood out against the shiny foil everything else was sold in. It looked old fashioned on purpose.
KP switched to standard foil bags in 2000, and a lot of long-term fans mark that as the moment the brand lost something. Whether the recipe changed at the same time is disputed. What is not disputed is that the bag everyone remembers is the paper one.
The Flavours
Two flavours did the heavy lifting and those are the two that come up every time the brand is mentioned:
- Roast Beef and Mustard. The hero. A savoury beef seasoning with a genuine mustard kick behind it, strong enough that people describe it as clearing their sinuses. This is the flavour that gets searched for, petitioned for and argued about.
- Ham and Pickle. The other mainstay. Smoky, sweet and sharp at once, and the one that had a smaller but extremely loyal following.
Other variants surfaced at points across the brand’s life, but the documentation is thin and a lot of what circulates online is unreliable, so treat any list beyond those two with suspicion. By the end, the range had narrowed considerably before KP pulled it altogether.
One thing worth saying plainly: because the product has been out of production since 2020, there is no current ingredient or allergen panel. Any vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free claim you find about Brannigans on the internet is based on labelling that is at least six years out of date. Do not rely on it.
Why KP Discontinued Brannigans
KP Snacks announced the decision in September 2020. Their reasoning was simple and commercial: sales had been trending down for a long time, stockist demand had dropped with them, and production was no longer viable. They also made clear they had no plans to bring the brand back.
That is the whole story. There was no scandal, no supply crisis, no recipe problem. A brand that peaked in the 1980s and 1990s kept shrinking until it could not justify a production line.
It also landed at a bad moment. Production stopped during the 2020 pandemic period when shelves were being simplified and manufacturers were cutting lower-volume lines across the board. Plenty of shoppers assumed the disappearance was temporary. It was not.
The Bigger Pattern
Brannigans is not an outlier. The UK crisp market has been consolidating for decades, and the pattern repeats:
- Big manufacturers buy smaller ones and rationalise overlapping ranges
- Retailers cut slow sellers to free up shelf space for higher-volume lines
- Bold, adult-targeted flavours lose out to mainstream ones that sell in volume
- A loyal fanbase is not the same thing as a profitable one
KP itself has changed hands more than once and has been owned by Intersnack since 2012. Our guide to KP crisps and what KP actually stands for covers that history properly, and our round-up of discontinued crisps we still miss puts Brannigans alongside the other big losses.
Can You Still Buy Brannigans Anywhere?
No. This needs saying clearly because a lot of pages online are vague about it.
There is no retail stock. There is no wholesale stock. There is no export stock. The production line stopped in 2020, and even the last legitimate bags to leave a factory are years past their best before date by now.
If you see a listing:
- Marketplace listings claiming Brannigans are almost always mislabelled, using stock photos, or selling something else entirely
- Old stock that genuinely is Brannigans will be dangerously out of date, and a six-year-old bag of crisps is not worth eating
- Novelty and collector listings sometimes sell empty bags to people who want the packaging, which is fine, but you are buying a bag not a snack
If you want to understand the date rules on this properly, our piece on whether it is legal to sell out of date crisps is worth a read before you hand anyone money.
For crisps you can actually get delivered today, the Amazon bestsellers list is the quickest place to start.
What to Eat Instead
Nothing replaces them exactly. That is the honest answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not eaten a Brannigan. But there are crisps that get you part of the way there, and they split into two groups: the texture match and the flavour match.
For the Texture
- McCoy’s. Same manufacturer, same thick ridge cut philosophy, same adult-targeted positioning. Flame Grilled Steak is the closest in spirit if you want the beef end of it. Browse the McCoy’s range here.
- Any deep ridge cut crisp. The thickness is what carries the seasoning. Thin crisps physically cannot hold that much powder, which is why light crisps never taste like Brannigans no matter what flavour is printed on the bag. Full cases and bulk boxes are the cheapest way to test a few.
For the Flavour
- Real Crisps Ham and English Mustard. The closest mustard hit still in production, and it comes at it from the ham side rather than the beef side. Grab a box of 24 here.
- Beef flavoured crisps generally. None of them carry mustard, but if it is the savoury beef base you miss rather than the heat, the beef flavour category is the right place to look.
- Supermarket premium roast beef and horseradish lines. Fans regularly name these as the nearest dupe, particularly the crinkle cut versions. Horseradish is not mustard, but it hits a similar nerve.
You can also compare the whole bulk range on Amazon if you would rather buy by the box than the bag.
Will Brannigans Ever Come Back?
There is no announcement, no trademark activity anyone has spotted and no hint from KP. As things stand, treat it as gone.
That said, the market has form for nostalgia relaunches. Walkers pulled Worcester sauce and later brought it back nationwide, a story we covered in full in our Worcester sauce crisps guide. Monster Munch has revived old variants more than once. Revivals happen when a manufacturer sees a commercial case, not when a petition hits a signature count.
The case for Brannigans is not nothing. The brand has unusually durable search demand for something discontinued six years ago, which is exactly the signal that makes a limited-edition relaunch tempting. But KP’s public position has not shifted since 2020, and the sensible expectation is that it will not.
The Short Version
Brannigans were a 1980s pub crisp built on thick ridges, brown paper bags and seasoning loud enough to survive a pint. Roast Beef and Mustard was the flavour that made the brand and Ham and Pickle was the cult favourite. KP Snacks discontinued the whole thing in September 2020 on falling sales and said they had no plans to make it again. They have not.
You cannot buy them, and you should not buy anything claiming to be them. The nearest things still in production are McCoy’s for the texture and Real Crisps Ham and English Mustard for the mustard, and the wider KP crisps and snacks range is where the family DNA still lives.
If you want to go further down the nostalgia route, our guides to 80s crisps, 70s crisps and Smiths Snaps cover the rest of the graveyard. Or just pick something you can actually eat tonight.
Have Brannigans crisps come back?
No. Brannigans have not returned since KP Snacks discontinued the brand in September 2020. Despite years of petitions and consistent search demand, there has been no relaunch and no announcement of one from KP.
When were Brannigans crisps discontinued?
KP Snacks confirmed the discontinuation in September 2020. The company cited a long-term decline in sales and falling demand from stockists, and stated that production was no longer commercially viable with no plans to produce them again.
Can you still buy Brannigans crisps anywhere in the UK?
No. Brannigans have not been in production since 2020 and there is no retail or wholesale stock. Any listing you find will either be mislabelled, selling a different product, or offering old stock that is years past its best before date.
What flavours did Brannigans crisps come in?
The two flavours the brand is remembered for are Roast Beef and Mustard, which was the hero product, and Ham and Pickle. Roast Beef and Mustard remains one of the most searched for discontinued crisps in the UK.
Who made Brannigans crisps?
Brannigans were made by KP Snacks, the same company behind McCoy’s, Hula Hoops and Space Raiders. KP Snacks has been owned by the German group Intersnack since 2012.
What crisps taste most like Brannigans?
Nothing matches them exactly. McCoy’s is the closest for the thick ridge cut texture and the adult flavour positioning, as both are KP brands. For the mustard element, Real Crisps Ham and English Mustard is the nearest thing still in production, and premium roast beef and horseradish crinkle cut lines are a common fan recommendation.
Will KP bring Brannigans back?
There has been no announcement or indication from KP Snacks since 2020. Nostalgia relaunches do happen in the UK crisp market, as Walkers showed with Worcester sauce, but they are driven by commercial opportunity rather than petitions. As things stand, Brannigans should be treated as permanently discontinued.
