Twisties
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Twisties is a snack food product available in Australia, Malta, Mauritius, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, among others. The brand name is owned by The Smith's Snackfood Company. While originally an Australian owned company, Smith's was acquired in August 1998, by Frito-Lay the second largest producer of snack foods in Australia, which in turn is owned by PepsiCo. In Malaysia, since Danone Malaysia has been acquired by Kraft Twisties is now a product of Kraft Malaysia.
Twisties are one of the most popular snack foods in Australia. Smith's claims it to be the "number one extruded snack brand"[1].
Twisties are produced by feeding a mix of milled corn, rice and water into a machine known as a rotary head or random extruder. This machine cooks the mix at high temperature and pressure whilst forming the pieces. This process results in the characteristic Twisties shape with the knobbly surface and squiggly shape. After forming, the pieces are oven baked before being flavoured with a coating of seasoning and vegetable oil.
During the 1990s the texture of Twisties was altered resulting in a smoother finish, and may have coincided with the acquisition of The Smith's Snackfood Company by Frito-Lay.
Twisties were originally available only in cheese flavour, but chicken flavour was introduced and became a standard part of the product line. There have also been flavours in various countries as diverse as Toffee, Tomato and Salmon Teriyaki.
Twisties have been advertised for several years with the well-known slogan "Life's pretty straight without... Twisties". Typical television advertisements play on the slogan by showing people in mundane situations being transported to surreal and exciting environments when they eat Twisties.
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[edit] International variants
Twisties are also sold on the Italian market with the name "Fonzies". Fonzies are pale yellow in colour, because they do not use the bright orange food colouring that normal Twisties uses. Fonzies are baked, not fried. Although sold in Italy, Fonzies are produced in Germany by LU Snack Foods GmbH.
In Australia, bacon flavour Twisties were produced briefly in the early 1970s, but were not a success and were withdrawn from the market after only a year. In Malta, the bacon flavoured Twistees are known as Tastees.
Twisties in New Zealand are different from the Australian variety. They are manufactured by Bluebird Foods Ltd and are only available in cheese flavour. They are less dense than the Australian variety, and their shape is less 'twisty'. In New Zealand the Australian Smith's variety are not widely available, however Cruncheese is a very similar product to Australian Twisties produced by Griffin's Foods under the Eta brand. Cruncheese is available in chicken, salt and vinegar and cheese flavours.
[edit] Trivia
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (January 2008) |
- Australian celebrities Nikki Webster and Natalie Imbruglia launched their careers with childhood appearances in Twisties commercials.
- The 1996 Saatchi & Saatchi Twisties advertising campaign, "Life's pretty straight without Melrose", won awards from the Advertising Federation of Australia. The campaign centred around linking Twisties to Melrose Place, then one of the most popular programs on Australian television.[2]
- In an episode of The Chaser's War on Everything, one of their segments was a spoof of the popular self help film The Secret. In the spoof they showed a clip of The Secret showing a Twisties packet being over a cat's head and the family laughing. The man being interviewed claimed the little things in life is what mattered and works to help bring the family together. Chas Licciardello decided to give it a try and placed a Twisties packet over a fake cat's head with a rubber band, consequently "suffocating" the cat.
- There is a famous reference to Twisties in the lyrics of the Skyhooks song, "Smut", that featured on the album Living in the 70's.
