A Decade Later: Whatever Happened to Burts British Spicy Chorizo Potato Chips?

By Martin Peyruc, Reporter

The Reckless Gastronome, Life News Today

In June 2014, the Reckless Gastronome wrote about Burts British Spicy Chorizo Potato Chips with all the enthusiasm of someone discovering a snack that arrived straight from the heavens, well, from Devon, England, which is close enough. He called them “bloody brilliant,” and meant it. They had a smoky sweetness, a polite hint of spice and the unforgettable charm of a hand-cooked label proudly stating which individual cooked them. Those chips vanished from the office faster than you can say “pass the crisps.”

But time moves on, and so do snack aisles. Phones now fold in half; cars beep at us when we drift one inch over a lane and every grocery store carries 12 varieties of hummus no one asked for. Through it all, one lingering question remained: Do they still sell Burts British Spicy Chorizo Chips?

The short answer is no. After digging through retailer archives, old product listings and what remains of the internet’s collective snack memory, there is no evidence the flavor is still in production. Several vendors show the chips as out of stock, including listings marked with best-before dates from 2021, and the official Burts website no longer displays Spicy Chorizo as part of its current lineup. What survives are only old reviews, scattered online catalog traces and the fond recollections of anyone lucky enough to have tasted them.

Burts itself continues to make crisps, and plenty of them. The brand still leans into the small-batch, hand-cooked identity that made its products stand out in the first place. But the Spicy Chorizo flavor appears to have joined the long list of snacks that lived brightly, briefly and then quietly retired without ceremony. There was no public announcement or farewell tour. One day it was simply gone, like so many limited-edition flavors that came before it.

Looking back with a decade of distance, one can admit that the chips didn’t truly taste like chorizo. They offered more of a smoked-paprika interpretation than a full Spanish sausage experience. The heat level was modest. Very modest. Almost shy. But flavor accuracy was never the point. What made the chips memorable was the balance: that smoky sweetness, the warm seasoning, the satisfying crunch and the novelty of a British crisp maker attempting a flavor more commonly associated with tapas bars.

In a snack landscape that has since embraced everything from rotisserie chicken chips to seaweed-lime-truffle hybrids, Burts’ Spicy Chorizo feels like an early sign of where the market was headed. Today’s shelves are filled with bold experiments, some great and some questionable. Burts’ retired flavor fits neatly into that evolution, a flavor that helped nudge the industry toward broader creativity.

Could Burts ever bring it back? Possibly. Brands frequently revive discontinued flavors when nostalgia demand rises, and “throwback” releases have become a marketing staple. But until the company confirms it, all we have is the historical record: the flavor existed, it was well loved and it appears to have been discontinued sometime after 2016.

If Burts ever resurrects Spicy Chorizo, we will be first in line, ready to relive 2014 one crunch at a time.