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Two pints of lager and a few slow-cooked octopus – what’s UK’s favorite pub snack in 2025?
By Mark Wyatt, dwell reporter
We have all bought our favourites. For me, it is the under-appreciated scampi fry. For others, it is the packet of salt and vinegar crisps communally break up open throughout a sticky desk, or the pork scratchings which may go away you needing a go to to the dentist.
The common-or-garden bar snack has been a part of UK social tradition for properly over a century and nonetheless performs an necessary position for punters and publicans in 2025. Patrons get an ever-expanding selections of (very salty) snacks to graze on over a drink. Landlords use them to generate incremental, excessive margin gross sales or, provided that some snacks are a loss chief, merely attraction to a wider buyer base in a tough market.
On this piece we take a look at how the pub snack has modified through the years and attempt to uncover what the nation’s favorite is in 2025.
How have pub snacks modified over time?
We have come a great distance from the times when Victorians had been downing oysters with their stout, however the pub snack’s perform hasn’t modified a lot down the many years.
It is the age-old adage – boozers need punters to gorge on salty snacks that maintain them thirsty.
Crisps began popping up as an choice in British pubs in the course of the first half of the twentieth century and shortly grew to become the nation’s favorite – with one producer dominating the market.
In 1934, 200 million packets of crisps had been bought in Britain every year, and 95% of them had been made by Smith’s. Their timeless Salt ‘n’ Shake crisps had been in all places.
After the Second World Struggle, KP introduced peanuts into the equation, with pork scratchings and pickles additionally popping up on bar cabinets.
As pubs started to compete for house with quick meals, extra substantial objects started showing.
From the Nineteen Sixties, ham and cheese rolls wrapped in cling movie had been an choice, earlier than sausage rolls, pasties and pies stored heat beneath a heater had been discovered on bars.
Throughout COVID one of many largest dialogue factors for just a few weeks was whether or not a Scotch egg constituted a snack or a meal.
The period of selection
Quick-forward to the current day and the bar snack staples stay just about in all places – crisps, peanuts and pork scratchings. That holy trinity can virtually at all times be present in one form or type.
However Pandora’s Field has opened for the reason that flip of the millennium, and our snack selections as punters have reached unprecedented ranges.
Some pubs make themselves recognized for going above and past with their choices.
It isn’t unusual to seek out olives, pretzels, jerky and popcorn out there in some boozers, and even enormous jars of pickles, eggs or chillis, blocking the sight of the lonely pack of Mini Cheddars hidden away behind the bar.
LovePubSnacks.com provides greater than 5,000 pubs and bars throughout the UK and say a few of its quirkier merchandise embody smoked pheasant and wild mushroom crisps and their vastly common poppadoms, which need to be served with a separate mango chutney dip.
And it isn’t simply people being catered for. LovePubSnacks additionally promote snacks for our furry companions, with Paw Scratchies, Bark Bangers and Sir Woofchesters all flying off the cabinets.
The luxurious nosh
Selection hardly ever comes low-cost, and the UK has witnessed a gradual rise in additional gourmand choices in pubs in the course of the previous 20 years.
Do not be shocked if you enter some watering holes to see a complete “bar bites” part on the meals menu, with rooster wings, pork stomach bites or some £17 slow-cooked octopus able to accompany your drink.
Many pubs – like my native – will go for the perfect of each worlds method, providing a small collection of crisps and peanuts in addition to some fancier choices that ought to actually belong on the starter menu.
More healthy selections?
Chances are high that when you’re making an attempt to maintain wholesome, the pub is not going to be considered one of your most frequented spots.
However even when you do pop in, many shall be happy to see pubs catering for many who do not wish to eat their total beneficial each day salt consumption in three mouthfuls.
Hospitality administration platform ServedUp not too long ago analysed 1.5 million pub orders and located that gross sales of hand-cooked and more healthy baked crisps are on the rise, as are olives and cashew nuts.
So, what is the nation’s favorite?
We would have extra choices than ever in 2025, however there is not any denying conventional selections are nonetheless main the best way for punters.
A Sky Information survey on LinkedIn discovered that crisps of any flavour are the perfect pub snack (44%), adopted by a intently fought race between peanuts (27%) and pork scratchings (26%).
Pub snack wholesaler JL Brooks backed up the findings, telling us that whereas selection is in all places, Britons nonetheless love the basic choices.
“We have seen a gradual improve in demand for extra premium, gourmet-style snacks, equivalent to hand-cooked crisps, blended nuts, and flavoured popcorn,” a spokesperson stated.
“Nonetheless, conventional choices like prepared salted crisps and salted peanuts nonetheless maintain their floor and are constantly requested.”
We wish to hear about your favorite pub snacks – go away a remark above and we’ll spherical up the perfect slightly later
