June 08, 2026
Michael Tanenbaum/PhillyVoice
Herr's 'Taste the 250' contest created three new potato chip flavors that will be available all summer at stores in the region. Voters chose Freedom Loaded Cheese Fries, Liberty Hickory Barbecue and United Jalapeño Cream Cheese as the winning flavors.
Herr's has unveiled a trio of new potato chip flavors inspired by Philly's history as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary next month.
The Chester County snack maker turned to the public for its "Taste the 250" campaign, putting nine flavors up to a vote in a contest that started in November. The candidates were broken into three categories — freedom, liberty and unity — for voters to select by popular demand.
Herr's toured Center City on a double-decker bus Monday afternoon to visit the three landmarks that each of the new flavors loosely represent. Samples of the new chips, now available all summer at stores in the region, were handed out for the first time.
Here are the winning flavors from the contest and some first impressions on how they taste.
Herr's Freedom Loaded Cheese Fries shine when you slow down to appreciate the bacon.
Michael Tanenbaum/PhillyVoice
These are ripple chips seasoned to taste like crispy fries topped with creamy cheese and smoky bacon.
If you inhale these chips, you might miss the smoky bacon notes and just experience it as a classic cheese-flavored chip. That would be fine, although not too adventurous. Slow down a bit and savor your chewing to catch the bacon. It makes all the difference with this one.
It's an overall solid chip. In the contest, this flavor beat out cheesy bread and cheesy crab dip. Not everyone's into seafood, so maybe that put some people off, but this is a potato chip. Voters missed an opportunity for a chip that probably would have gotten a bit of old bay seasoning. If Herr's threw bacon on top of that, they might have unlocked something special. Still, they did a good job following the will of the people.
Herr's Liberty Hickory Barbecue chips strike the right balance between a classic BBQ chip and one with a little extra kick.
This is another ripple chip combining barbecue sauce flavor, sweet molasses and smoky hickory seasoning.
It's perfectly executed. It has all the best qualities of a barbecue chip that will please everyone, plus a hint of sweetness that blends well with the smoky flavor to separate it from a typical barbecue chip. Sometimes barbecue chips get a bit too fancy and can taste like you're drinking a bottle of sauce. In this case, Herr's took it up a notch without going overboard.
These chips beat out roasted garlic barbecue and hot honey barbecue, both of which would have been interesting. But the garlic would have been a breath killer and hot honey is divisive. Unless you get that one person who's going to house the whole bag, there's a risk they go mostly untouched amid a larger food spread. The people chose well and Herr's delivered.
Herr's United Jalapeño Cream Cheese chips might be the best of the bunch.
This is the banger of the bunch. It's zippy. It commands your attention. The cream cheese gives it a lighter profile compared with the others, and underneath the seasoning it has more of a classic potato chip taste than the others. It's a versatile chip that's not so spicy that you lose the ability to taste them after a the first couple handfuls.
These beat out lemon pepper and mango habanero chips. The breakdown of the vote in this category must have been tight. Herr's should go ahead and make the mango habanero chip, anyway. Mango works really well on Harvest Snaps' Mango Chile Lime flavor. It's an area Herr's could and should break into with their chips.
Potato chips didn't exist in the revolutionary era, but the story of Herr's is part of the legacy that has made Pennsylvania the so-called "Potato Chip Capital of the World." The state's soil is considered ideal for producing starchy, light, dry potatoes that crisp up when cooked in hot oil. Pennsylvania Dutch communities made fried potato slices a staple snack in the 19th century.
Chips are often said to have been invented in upstate New York in the 1850s by chef George Crum. Some folklorists think that the origin story is more legend than fact, but Crum helped popularize the American style of potato chips. The first known recipe for fried potato chips is found in William Kitchiner's 1817 British cookbook, "The Cook's Oracle."
In the United States, much of the chip and snack industry is concentrated in the Susquehanna Valley of central Pennsylvania, where German settlers' tradition of making hard pretzels evolved into broader categories. Herr's, Utz, Wise Foods and Snyder's of Hanover are all now among the nation's largest snack companies, while smaller regional players like Martin's and Gibble's have been household names for generations.
Jim Herr was 21 in 1946 when he branched out from his family's Lancaster County chicken farm to purchase Vernice Potato Chips — then a tiny operation — for $1,750. Herr sold potato chips door-to-door to build the brand, and within a decade the company had a strong foothold in the region. A factory fire in 1951 nearly doomed Herr's operation, prompting the company to move its headquarters to Nottingham in Chester County.
Herr's first chip seasonings were introduced in 1958. The company started selling barbecue chips after Kansas City's Guy's Snack Foods — still an independent brand — found success with the flavor in the Midwest.
"Barbecue was just the most popular flavor at the time," said Ed Herr, Jim's son.
In the 1960s, Herr's rolled out a lineup of flavors that included sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, old bay, pizza, dill and red hot, among others in later years. The company entered the Philly market in the '60s to compete with Wise, which had darker colored chips at the time. Herr's changed its recipe to make the chips lighter and promoted them with the marketing slogan "Lively, Light and Delicious."
"It was just potato chips made in two different ways," Herr said. "I'm not sure if that's what helped us to be successful or what it was, but for some reason people just liked them. It just had eye appeal."
Herr's ventured into other snack products in the 1970s. The company expanded nationally and internationally in the 1990s, becoming the largest privately held and family-owned snack company in the United States.
This is Herr's fifth year holding "Flavored by Philly" chip contests. In the past, the company has asked snackers to choose seasonings inspired by local eateries including Corropolese Bakery in Montgomery County and Romano's Stromboli in Delaware County. Last year, voters were asked to choose between three previous "Flavored by Philly" contest winners: Long Hots & Sharp Provolone (2022), Corropolese tomato pie (2023) and Romano's Special Hot Stromboli (2024). Long Hots & Sharp Provolone was declared the winner and is now a permanent part of Herr's chip lineup.
Herr's officials said the three new flavors will be around for at least the summer, but there's a chance they could stick around beyond America's 250th birthday.
