Paddock to packet, potato chip company Smith's 90 years in Australia 🥔 | Landline | ABC Australia

Whether it's salt and vinegar, barbeque or plain... who doesn't love potato chips? But as you crunch away have you ever thought about the effort and process it takes to make them? Landline reporter Luke Wong has discovered it's not just any regular potato that makes the cut.

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[stuartkcalvin]

This piece brings back so many memories. My father was the Production Manager when Eta was making the crisps at Marrickville NSW (Marrickville Holdings Pty Ltd), in the late '60s and early '70s. During school holidays I worked as a young fella on the end of the production line, placing cartons onto pallets, banding them, then wheeling them out to the warehouse. My father ended up as the Australasian/Oceanic Snacks Foods Manager when Weston was the owner, based in Chatswood NSW.

Women packed the packets into the boxes while men ran the machines. There were Lebanese, Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, you name a country - they were represented; English was not a language in the factory! Excess crisps ran down the conveyer into a 200 litre drum controlled by a dour Serb. When full, he would heft that drum onto his shoulder and walk it back to the cooked crisp conveyer - and do that all day.

As an aside, Dupont provided the film that wrapped the crisps. In the 'olden' days, the blue packet contained the traditional Smiths Crisps - what distinguished them from other crisps was that, while well washed, they were not peeled and cooked in animal fat. The animal fat gave them that great taste and you could look at a crisp side-on and see the brown skin. So a day's run was either blue packet or other crisps cooked in vegetable oil with a dusting of flavour. In the early '70s, supermarkets were already asking for their own branding on the packaging - same crisp, different wrap.

The Eta Marrickville plant experimented with flavours and also produced Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs, Twisties, Cheezles and 'straw' crisps (which were popular). The Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs (candy coated popped corn) were a US import but never took off. If you could see Twisties or Cheezles being made (by extrusion), you'd never eat one - a bit like watching sausage making.

Flavours were imported from the UK - Tomato Sauce, Cheese and Onion and some other flavours that never took off in Australia. Salt and Vinegar as well as BBQ were successes.

The Eta Marrickville plant also produced/packaged margarine, nuts, peanut butter and also housed the Smiths Crisps race car (which had a full time panel beater and spray painter!).

They are crisps, not chips ;)

[SchoolScience]

Please upload in 4k if possible. These are wonderful videos.

[matthewchen]

Smiths - The Original and the Best / You Know You’ll Love ’Em!

[matthewchen]

Whenever I have Hot Pot (aka Steamboat), it always makes me think of Smiths Potato Chips!

[lauriebarns]

Am old enough to remember, when growing up in Scotland, Smiths crisps came unsalted. Inside the bag was a twist of blue waxed paper containing salt. You had the choice of putting the amount of salt you wanted. Shame it was done away with.

[chap]

Father Gerald drops buy when the TV crew arrives!!! Very clean jumper!!!!

[deathcore]

if they open up a few more farms they could actually manage to fill their packets

[drpk]

If you want to find new varieties I would recommend you to check the types available in Iran. It is shocking how narrow the chips varieties are in Australia and I haven’t seen anywhere the diversity and taste of chips in Iran.

[steveclifford]

Smith.s made in Oz, I’m now Smiths. Thanks ABC

[civlyzed]

We don't have that brand here in the US, but I'd like to try 'em!

[someone]

If only they’d divert their potato production to frozen potato products (frozen chips, potato gems, hash browns, frozen mash potato etc) During this ridiculous shortage of food supply Australia wide the past couple years, one would think the nations food security would be a higher priority than bloody junk food! Sick of having to buy our frozen potato products from overseas producers (have noticed similar with all other frozen vegetables types also, majority from China and some from European manufacturers, as well as eggs, meat and dairy supplies!). Coles and Woolies need to step up their support for stocking AUSTRALIAN GROWN food and the Fed Govt in Australia should be bloody well be prioritising food security in Australia! The ABC report says there are “47 potato growers in Australia from North Qld to Victoria” and “it takes about 4 months to grow them” and “the variety is well suited for being frozen for supply during the non-growing season” well then there shouldn’t be a bloody frozen potato shortage in this country! And stop all the BS shop signs about “food supply challenges due to Covid”! Next you’ll tell us we’ve run out of flour and bread because of the war in Ukraine! My 89 year old father said the last time he saw this type of disruption to food security was during WW2. Maybe we are in a fifth generation war right now except we’re all too broke, financially stressed, worried and distracted about keeping jobs and paying our bills to notice.

[AJPickett]

So nice for a local company to be employing all these disadvantaged folks from America and the UK.

[stephenjdixon]

for all pracical purposes a ton is a tonne both pronounced tun

[blake]

The best potatoes come from NSW Tasmania and SA

[hmr]

if they could make a full bag of chip where the look folded over in half thats my fav type to find in the bag

[kidfreejones]

This was cool to watch since I live about 4kms from the factory in the vid. I'd be a shit taste tester though, all would be approved for market 🤣

[Decade-ck]

It's actually been a while since I had Smiths chips, come to think of it.

[hmr]

wish we could buy jar of extra flavoring in all runs

[stuartkcalvin]

Get chips from a fish and chip shop. Get your crisps from a supermarket.

[hulkgqnissanpatrol]

They changed the way they make them 10-12 year's ago.
I can't eat them anymore, they make my stomach feel horrible and always get blocked up.
Never had a problem beforehand and was eaten almost every second day.