Salt and Shake Crisps: The Story Behind the Blue Sachet

Salt and Shake crisps are plain potato crisps sold with a separate blue sachet of salt that you add yourself. They were invented by Frank Smith in the 1920s as the original format for Smiths Crisps, making them one of the oldest crisp concepts in the UK. They are now sold under the Walkers name and are still in production.

Most crisp innovations are about adding more. More flavour, more seasoning, more intensity. Salt and Shake went the other direction entirely. A plain crisp, no seasoning applied, and a small twist of salt on the side. You add as much or as little as you want. That was the whole idea in the 1920s, and it remains the whole idea now.

The blue salt sachet is one of the most recognisable formats in British crisp history. It is also the reason Smiths Crisps existed at all. Without it there might not have been a Smiths, and without Smiths there might not have been a Walkers. The Salt and Shake format is not just a product. It is where British crisp culture started.

The History of Salt and Shake Crisps

How they were invented

Frank Smith founded his crisp business in Cricklewood, north London, in 1920. He was selling plain potato crisps to local pubs, and the standard practice was to have a salt cellar on the bar so customers could season their own crisps. The problem was simple: pub-goers kept using too much salt, emptying the cellars, and sometimes stealing them.

Smith’s solution was to put a small twist of salt inside each bag. 0.6g of salt, wrapped in blue paper, included with every pack. The customer added it themselves and shook the bag to distribute it. This was the first Salt and Shake, and it changed British crisp culture permanently. By 1934, Smiths were producing 90% of all crisps sold in the UK.

The Smiths to Walkers journey

Smiths Crisps remained under separate ownership until 1982, when Nabisco purchased both Smiths and Walkers, bringing them under the same roof. PepsiCo then acquired the whole operation in 1989. From that point, PepsiCo gradually consolidated the Smiths and Walkers brands.

Salt and Shake disappeared from shelves for a period in the 1990s as the flavoured crisp market grew and plain unseasoned formats fell out of fashion. Walkers relaunched Salt and Shake in 2003, bringing it back under the Walkers name rather than Smiths. The Smiths branding was not retained for this product, which marks it out from Frazzles and Chipsticks, which still carry the Smiths name on the pack.

The blue sachet

The blue colour of the salt sachet was not arbitrary. It became so associated with Salt and Shake crisps that people who grew up with them remember the colour as distinctly as the taste. The question of which crisps came with a blue packet of salt is one of the most searched crisp-related queries in the UK, which tells you how deeply embedded the format is in British food memory.

The current Walkers version uses the same blue sachet format. Each sachet contains 0.6g of salt, described as 10% of an adult’s daily reference intake.

What Salt and Shake Crisps Are Like

The crisp itself

Without the salt sachet applied, Salt and Shake crisps taste like plain fried potato. Clean, starchy, genuinely potato-flavoured in a way that pre-seasoned crisps often are not. This is the point. The base crisp is not masked by seasoning, so the quality of the potato and the fry comes through clearly.

Walkers use 100% British potatoes across their range, sliced and fried in a blend of sunflower and rapeseed oil. The antioxidants in the ingredients (Rosemary Extract, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherol Rich Extract, Citric Acid) preserve freshness without artificial additives.

Adding the salt

The ritual of adding the salt is part of the experience. You open the bag, fish out the blue sachet, tear it open, pour the salt over the crisps, fold the bag closed, and shake. How vigorously you shake determines how evenly the salt is distributed. Getting it even is harder than it sounds, which is also part of the charm.

The 0.6g sachet is a specific amount rather than a suggestion. At exactly 10% of the daily reference intake, it is calibrated to provide moderate seasoning without overdoing it. Anyone who wants more salt adds their own. Anyone who wants less uses only part of the sachet.

How they compare to ready salted

Ready Salted crisps from Walkers or any other brand have salt applied during manufacture as part of the seasoning process. The seasoning coats the crisp evenly and becomes part of the product. Salt and Shake starts from a different point: the crisp is made with no added salt, and the customer applies it afterwards. The result is a slightly different texture (no seasoning residue on the surface before salting) and a different relationship between crisp and salt.

Salt and Shake: Dietary Information

Ingredients

Potatoes, Vegetable Oils (Sunflower, Rapeseed, in varying proportions), Salt (in sachet), Antioxidants (Rosemary Extract, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherol Rich Extract, Citric Acid). Made in a factory that also handles Milk, Wheat, Soya, Gluten, Barley, Celery, Mustard.

The ingredient list is about as short as it gets for a commercial crisp. Potato, oil, salt. That is essentially it.

Are Salt and Shake crisps vegan?

Yes, based on the ingredients. There are no animal-derived ingredients in Salt and Shake crisps. The factory cross-contamination warnings include milk, but the product itself contains none. Always check the current packaging for confirmation.

Are Salt and Shake crisps vegetarian?

Yes. Walkers confirm they are suitable for vegetarians, as labelled on the packaging.

Are Salt and Shake crisps gluten free?

No. While the ingredients themselves do not contain gluten, Salt and Shake crisps are made in a factory that handles wheat, barley, and gluten. They are not certified gluten free and are not suitable for people with coeliac disease. For confirmed gluten free options, the UK gluten free crisps guide covers the brands and products that are certified.

Calories and nutrition

Each 24g pack contains 128 kcal (before the salt sachet, which adds no calories). Per 100g: energy 533 kcal, fat 32.3g, carbohydrates 52.2g, protein 6.2g. The nutritional profile is very similar to a standard plain potato crisp.

The Cultural Legacy of the Blue Sachet

Why people still search for it

The Salt and Shake format predates flavoured crisps in the UK. For anyone who grew up before the flavour explosion of the 1960s and 1970s, the blue salt sachet was simply how crisps worked. It became so embedded in British food culture that generations later, people who grew up with flavoured crisps as the norm still associate the little blue twist with a specific kind of nostalgia.

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The format also spawned imitators. Golden Wonder and other brands released their own versions. Smiths themselves briefly experimented with Flavour and Shake, where the sachet contained a seasoning powder rather than salt. That variant did not last.

The salt sachet in pub culture

The original context for Salt and Shake was the pub. Frank Smith invented the format specifically for pub crisps, where customers needed something to do with their snack beyond opening the bag. The ritual of finding the sachet, adding the salt, and shaking gave the experience a small interactive element that plain pre-salted crisps lacked. Pubs stocked Smiths Salt and Shake for decades, and the sachet became part of the scenery of the British pub snack.

Where to Buy Salt and Shake Crisps

In supermarkets

Walkers Salt and Shake multipacks (6 x 24g) are available in Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, and Co-op. They are stocked in the standard crisp aisle alongside other Walkers multipacks.

Online

You can search for Walkers Salt and Shake on Amazon for multipacks and larger quantities. For Salt and Shake on eBay, bulk boxes occasionally come up at good prices. The broader Walkers crisps range is also worth browsing if you want to explore the full portfolio.