PSA: Utz Is Turning Even More Chips Into Frozen Appetizers

Tim Nelson
·2 min read

When you think of Utz, you think of chips and other crunchy snacks. It makes sense, given that that’s what they’ve been doing pretty successfully going on 99 years now.

Well, now that they’re a big-time publicly traded company, it looks like Utz is branching out from the snack aisle to the frozen food section less than a year before their hundredth birthday, just in time for a new reality where we’re all trapped at home and eating junk food with renewed, almost nihilistic abandon.

As opposed to your average room temp chip, these are meant to be enjoyed as a hot snack akin to an appetizer you might find at your neighborhood bar and grill that may or may not be safe to eat at right now. While it would be unrealistic to say they encompass the full breadth of the Utz line (because I suppose you can only turn chips into appetizers in so many different ways), there’s solid representation of their top most tastiest treats.

Specifically, we’re working with three Zapp’s apps. They are the Voodoo Battered Fried Pickles, Pimento Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Peppers, and Cajun-Style Boudin Balls (complete with “Cajun Crawtator” seasoning and filled with an andouille sausage/rice blend). That’s rounded out by a cheese filled take on Utz’s classic orange Cheese Balls, which may be one of the most dangerously addictive snacks around.

Since I guess it’s hard to go from making chips to frozen appetizers overnight, these Utz eats are technically a collaboration with monogram foods, who worked with Utz to get their first foray into fancier finger foods just right.

“With more than 90% of consumers now snacking multiple times throughout the day, we are excited to offer a flavorful twist to snacking,” Monogram Foods president Wes Jackson told Food Business News. “These items offer the same flavors you know and trust from Utz and Zapp’s, now available in a hot snack.”

So if standard chips just don’t do it anymore or you’re trying to broaden your snack rotations because the world as we know it may not even be here in 2021, mask up and get to the frozen food aisle. Now if only they could sell those cheese filled Cheese Balls in a massive 35-ounce container, then we’d really be in business.