SA has voted Simba's Tomato Sauce chips off the shelves for good

I clearly remember the excitement, my friends and I were sitting on our favourite spot on the steps during a college break, huddled over a bag of Simba chips: it was a brand new flavour, Tomato Sauce.

The biggest surprise was the colour of the crisps: they were dusted red with tomato flavouring, so different and a refreshing change from our usual fave, Salt & Vinegar. We lapped them up, laughing about our red tongues and the tinges of colour at the ends of our fingers. Potato chips and tomato sauce became inseparable in our books.

It's said that food, like fashion, changes — a concept proved true by the recent “Choose Me or Lose Me” #SaveYourFlava campaign, in which Simba asked SA to vote to save one of three classic crisp flavours: All Gold Tomato Sauce, Cheese & Onion and Salt & Vinegar. The least popular would be discontinued to “make way for new arrivals”.

A whopping 845,000 people participated in the poll and the results are in: Tomato Sauce crisps came in last place, garnering only 18.01% of the votes.

If you’re a fan of the flavour, best stock up now. The brand's PR confirms that Simba will no longer be making All Gold Tomato Sauce chips, though they will still be on shelves for the next few months.

So which of the remaining flavours came tops? It was said to be a neck-and-neck tussle between Cheese & Onion and Salt & Vinegar, the latter was leading the charge only to be overtaken by the former in the end. 

As a diehard Salt & Vinegar fan I’m disappointed that they only got 37% of the votes. Yes, Cheese & Onion (44.99%) is an evergreen flavour combo, but come on South African crisp lovers, it’s such an oh-so-yesterday taste profile.