Quavers are a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 snack

Snack

A snack is a small portion of food eaten between meals. The food might be snack food—items like potato chips or baby carrots—but could also simply be a smaller amount of any food item.-Snacks and health:...

, originally made by Smiths

The Smith's Snackfood Company

The Smith's Snackfood Company is a company best known for producing and selling a range of snack food such as crisps. It is now owned by New York based company PepsiCo.-Smiths in the UK:...

, and now produced by Walkers

Walkers (snack foods)

Walkers is a British snack food manufacturer operating mainly in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and to a lesser extent on the European continent. They are best known for manufacturing crisps. They hold 47 per cent of the British crisp market...

. Walkers, part of the Pepsico

PepsiCo

PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...

 family, purchased the Quavers brand in 1997 where it became one of the Frito Lay International brand names.

History

In February 2007 Quavers were re-launched in new packaging (along with other Walkers brands such as Wotsits

Wotsits

Wotsits is a brand of cheese puffs sold by Walkers. The most common form are cheese flavoured curly shapes. However over the years various other shapes and flavours have also been sold...

 and Monster Munch

Monster Munch

Monster Munch is a baked corn snack available in the United Kingdom, produced by Walkers. Although the snack is largely aimed at children, it is enjoyed widely by people of all ages.-Smiths Monster Munch :...

) to coincide with the new usage of Sunseed oil in their ingredients.
In 2009 Quavers, Squares, Wotsits and French Fries changed their packaging again because of a reduction in calories. In 2011 for an unknown reason, Quavers changed their packaging yet again with a brighter bag colour and now has the Walkers logo on the packets again. Still based in Leicester, Walkers joined the PepsiCo family in 1989.

Ingredients

The primary ingredient in Quavers is reconstituted potatoes. They are deep fried to give a snack with a similar texture to Krupuk (prawn crackers), but have a different flavour and are smaller with a curled-up rectangle shape (similar in cross-section

Cross section (geometry)

In geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...

 to a quaver). Originally only available in cheese and smoky bacon flavours, the product line now contains three flavours: cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, prawn cocktail

Prawn cocktail

Prawn cocktail is a seafood dish consisting of "shelled prawns in mayonnaise and tomato dressing, served in a glass". It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain in the 1970s.-External links:*...

 and salt and vinegar

Vinegar

Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...

. A ketchup

Ketchup

Ketchup is a sweet-and-tangy condiment typically made from tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and an assortment of...

 flavour was also introduced, but for a limited time only and this is no longer available.

Nutrition

A one pack (16.4 g) serving of regular Quavers contains 87 calories

Calorie

The calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy. It was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat, entering French and English dictionaries between 1841 and 1867. In most fields its use is archaic, having been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule...

, of which 44 are from fat. Quavers contain a mixture of fats (4.9g): saturated fat

Saturated fat

Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the individual carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain. That is, the chain of carbon atoms is fully "saturated" with hydrogen atoms...

 0.4g, polyunsaturated fat

Polyunsaturated fat

In nutrition, polyunsaturated fat, or polyunsaturated fatty acid, are fatty acids in which more than one carbon–carbon double bond exists within the representative molecule. That is, the molecule has two or more points on its structure capable of supporting hydrogen atoms not currently part of the...

 0.6g and monounsaturated fat

Monounsaturated fat

In biochemistry and nutrition, monounsaturated fats or MUFA are fatty acids that have one double bond in the fatty acid chain and all of the remainder of the carbon atoms in the chain are single-bonded...

 3.8g. The sodium

Sodium

Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals; its only stable isotope is 23Na. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride...

 content is 170mg. Quavers have 88 calories in their Cheese flavour and 86 in the salt and vinegar variety.

Advertising

The former mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

 of Quavers was a cartoon dog named 'Colin Curly', voiced by Lenny Henry

Lenny Henry

Lenworth George "Lenny" Henry, is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.- Early life :...

 in television advertising. Colin also appeared in two Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 and Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 puzzle games: Pushover (1992) and its sequel, One Step Beyond (1993), both published by Ocean

Ocean Software

The British company Ocean Software was one of the biggest European video game developers/publishers of the 1980s and 90s...

.