Walkers explains why you buy half a bag of air with its crisps

It’s something just about every Brit will have encountered, save for the brave souls who deprive themselves of crisps.

You’ve polished off your Simply Ham sandwich, washed it down with a couple of swigs of Buxton water, and then you crack open that bag of Ready Salted Walkers only to find that someone’s already eaten half of them.

Or at least, that’s how it appears. Beyond the cavernous top half of your packet, complete with nothing but air and broken dreams, lies the handful of crisps that apparently counts as a portion.

A sadly familiar sight (X.com)

You’ve already suffered the ignominy of eating the blandest meal deal in the office, and now you can’t even gorge yourself on a full bag of processed potato slices. We used to be a proper country!

A champion among us has thankfully taken the fight directly to Walkers. Lucas, the brave X user in question, tweeted the question we’ve all wanted to ask: "@walkers_crisps is this what you call a packet of crisps? If you only put about 12 crisps in there to begin with, maybe reduce the size of the packaging to advertise a realistic product?

"These are both brand new opened bags. the first photo literally left me in shock."

Hopefully Lucas didn’t mean ‘shock’ in the medical sense, but after seeing the two photos he provided as evidence it’s fair to say that a convulsion or two would have been a fair reaction. Unfortunately the tweet has been deleted, but its legacy lives on.

Both packets were nearly empty, and it’s a sight with which you’re likely very familiar.

A fellow X user replied: "That’s awful! Better off getting Aldi own brand as at least they fill the packet."

You might think that Walkers would bury its head in the sand – or perhaps into the helpful void provided by its packets of crisps – but the company actually responded with what might count for a reasonable answer.

"Hi Lucas, we fill our bags by the weight printed on the pack, cushioned with air/nitrogen, because no one likes broken crisps," Walkers tweeted in response.

Are you a packet half-full or packet half-empty kind of person? (SUSANNAH IRELAND / Contributor/Getty Images)

Walkers has of course made a leap there; some of us are partial to crushing those crisps up and pouring them down the hatch. Nevertheless, it makes sense that it would prefer to dish up its crisps in their whole state so you can make the decision to crush them for yourself.

Whether you like it or not, it’s good to have an answer to the question. Of course, the aficionados out there will know a grab bag of Walkers Max is the way go; if you’re still hungry after one of those, then there’s no satisfying you.