A bag of crisps is potatoes, oil and seasoning, and the oil is the whole palm question. Our database holds 142 Walkers products, 268 Lay's products and 184 Pringles products, all checked for palm oil. Walkers and Lay's are both PepsiCo brands, Pringles is not, and all three sell the same idea in the same aisle, yet they come out completely differently on this one check.
Walkers: 134 of 142 pass
Walkers is the easy case. The UK Cheese & Onion pack lists potatoes, vegetable oils (sunflower, rapeseed, in varying proportions), then the seasoning. Ready Salted is potatoes, vegetable oils, salt and antioxidants. Sunflower and rapeseed are named, palm is not, and the pack passes. The same is true across the range: Salt & Vinegar, Prawn Cocktail, Wotsits, Quavers, Sensations, Baked, Max, French Fries, 134 packs in all, listed on the Walkers palm oil free page.
The four Walkers products that fail are not crisps. They are Walkers Stem Ginger biscuits and three other shortbread biscuits from Walkers of Aberlour, a Scottish bakery that has nothing to do with the crisp company. They share the name and the search results, not the recipe.
Four packs stay open: two have no ingredient list on file, and two, including a Sea Salt baked snack, list "oil" with no plant named.
Lay's: 207 pass, 14 fail, 47 stay open
Lay's is one brand name on three different recipes, and the oil line tells you which one you are holding.
Europe: sunflower and rapeseed. The French Lay's Nature lists potatoes, vegetable oils 34% (sunflower, rapeseed), salt. The Belgian Lay's Barbecue names sunflower and rapeseed and carries a "no palm oil" claim on the pack. Most of the 207 passes are European packs of this kind.
India: palmolein. Lay's Classic Salted lists potato, edible vegetable oil (palmolein oil, rice bran oil), salt. American Style Cream & Onion and Magic Masala are the same. Eight of the 14 fails are Indian packs naming palmolein, a liquid fraction of palm oil. The other six name palm oil outright: a Romanian oven-baked pack, the US and French Bugles, and a Dutch Grills pack.
United States: "and/or". US Lay's list "vegetable oil (sunflower, corn and/or canola oil)". The plants are named, but "and/or" means the pack does not commit to any of them, and the Open Food Facts analysis that our check reads marks the palm status of many of these packs as unknown rather than clear. Thirty-three of the 47 open Lay's records, such as the US Barbecue, stay open for that reason. To be plain: we have not found palm oil in a US Lay's pack. We have found a label that does not rule it out.
The remaining open records are foreign-language labels or packs with no ingredient list on file.
Pringles: 17 pass, 13 fail, 154 stay open
Pringles is the frustrating one. The tube lists "vegetable oils" and then names them, usually sunflower, corn and sometimes palm, "in varying proportions". When palm is named, the tube fails: the French Pringles Original lists sunflower, palm and corn oils, and so do Texas BBQ, Smokey Bacon and the South African Peri-Peri tube. Thirteen tubes fail this way.
When palm is not named, the tube still usually stays open, and the reason is the phrase "in varying proportions" together with the fact that the Pringles recipe also uses partially hydrogenated sunflower oil in some seasonings. The Open Food Facts palm analysis cannot rule palm out on 147 of the tubes, and our check reports what it finds: not sure. This is the largest single group in the whole comparison.
Seventeen tubes pass on a clean list. The Spanish-language, US-made Pringles Original lists cottonseed oil only. The UK Salt and Vinegar, Extra Hot and Hot & Spicy tubes in our data also pass, along with the Indonesian Sour Cream & Onion. The full list is on the Pringles palm oil free page.
The three brands side by side
| Brand | Packs | Pass | Fail | Not sure | Why the open ones are open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walkers | 142 | 134 | 4 (biscuits, other company) | 4 | no list, or "oil" unnamed |
| Lay's | 268 | 207 | 14 (India palmolein, Bugles) | 47 | US "and/or", foreign labels |
| Pringles | 184 | 17 | 13 (palm named) | 154 | "vegetable oils in varying proportions" |
The pattern is not about the company. It is about how the oil line is written. A pack that says "sunflower, rapeseed" is done. A pack that says "sunflower, corn and/or canola" or "vegetable oils in varying proportions" has told you what might be in the fryer, not what is.
How to check a pack in the shop
- Find the oil line, usually the second ingredient.
- If it names one or two plants and stops (sunflower, rapeseed), palm is out.
- If it names palm, palmolein, palm fat or palm kernel, palm is in.
- If it says "vegetable oil" with no plant, or lists several plants "and/or" or "in varying proportions", the pack has not told you. Look for a "no palm oil" claim on the front, as on the Belgian Lay's.
- Seasoning sub-lists rarely carry palm in crisps; the fryer oil is the line that matters.
Every crisp in our database has its own page with the ingredient list and the palm oil, vegan and halal verdicts side by side, and the chips and snacks category lists the packs that passed. For the names palm oil hides behind, see Palm oil ingredient names on labels, and for what the claim on the front actually promises, What "palm oil free" means on a label.
FAQ
Do Walkers crisps contain palm oil?
Not in our data. All 134 Walkers crisp packs we checked name sunflower and rapeseed oil. The only Walkers products that fail are shortbread biscuits from an unrelated Scottish bakery.
Do Lay's contain palm oil?
European Lay's name sunflower and rapeseed and pass. Indian Lay's list palmolein and fail. US Lay's list "sunflower, corn and/or canola", which our check cannot close, so they come back "not sure".
Do Pringles contain palm oil?
Some tubes name palm oil and fail, including the French Original, Texas BBQ and Smokey Bacon. Most tubes list several oils "in varying proportions" and come back "not sure". Seventeen tubes in our data pass on a clean list, including the Spanish-language US Original and the UK Salt and Vinegar.
What is palmolein?
Palmolein is the liquid fraction of palm oil, separated out for frying. On a label it counts as palm oil.