Tudor Crisps: The Sunderland born brand which somehow ended up with a Newcastle identity

Tudor Crisps were a brand of crisps strongly associated with North East England and were very popular for their strong taste. Like many local and grassroots brands, Tudor crisps fell victim to globalisation whereby their parent companies were gradually taken over by global conglomerates who eventually discontinued it.

Most people will assume Tudor Crisps were a “Geordie” brand. That is because in the 1970s it featured a famous advert filmed in Tyneside that proclaimed “Why aye man, they’re Tudor, I’d climb a mountain.” However, this Newcastle focus was in fact a corruption of what was by birth, a Sunderland firm, and only ended up with its “Geordie” identity when a larger firm purchased them.

Tudor Crisps was founded on Wearside in 1947, where its first factory would be based for 14 years. There is limited publicly available information as to where the Sunderland factory actually was, although there was a small crisp factory on Church Street in the East End.

The choice of the name “Tudor” was deliberate on the part of the founders, emulating the name of the famous royal dynasty to conjure a brand of royalty and prestige, this is evident on early advertising for the crisps which used the image of Henry VIII.

As stated by the Crisp Museum website: “Tudor became known for its unusual (at the time) choice of flavours including Tomato Ketchup, Hot Dog & Mustard, And Pickled Onion. Tudor’s packets were colour-coded: Cheese & Onion sold in blue packets, Beef Barbecue in brown, Tomato Sauce in red.“

The new Tudor brand was a big hit throughout the region, and by 1961 it had been acquired by Crisps giant Smiths. However, in taking over the brand they ended its Sunderland base and sought to increase production by basing it at two other factories, one in Peterlee and the other in Sandyford Road, Newcastle. Because of the latter, Tudor Crisps soon gained a “Newcastle” identity which whitewashed its Sunderland heritage and pushed the Geordie accent.

Despite this, the popularity of Tudor throughout Wearside remained steadfast. They were commonly stocked by local pubs, including that of The Prospect and the North Moor (later the double maxim). However, the end of Tudor crisps would come when Smiths was purchased itself by an even larger and more global brand: Pepsi.

In 2003, Pepsi made the decision to discontinue Tudor as it focused on Walkers, which it also owned. However, the Peterlee factory continued to operate as a crisp factory until it shut down in 2017. Thankfully, businesswoman and Washington local Heather Mills-McCartney saved the factory and transformed it into a vegan snack producer, saving local jobs.