Are Herr’s Potato Chips Vegan 2023? All Flavors Reviewed

For many vegans, chips is a popular snack. However even tho the main ingredient are potatoes, chips may have many non-vegan ingredients in them, which can be difficult to spot sometimes. Today I analyzed a brand called Herr’s to answer the question, are Herr’s potato chips vegan?

Many flavors of Herr’s chips are vegan such as Ripple, Crisp ‘n Tasty and Barbecue just to name a few. They are vegan because they don’t contain any animal produced ingredients.

Below is a table showing Herr’s potato chips flavors and its vegan status.

Flavor	Vegan Status
Herr’s Ripple Potato Chips	Vegan.
Herr’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Potato Chips	Vegan.
Herr’s Old Bay Chips	Maybe, contains Natural Flavor.
Herr’s Barbecue Potato Chips	Vegan.
Herr’s Salt & Vinegar Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips	No, contains Milk.
Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion Flavored Potato Chips	No, contains Milk.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Original	Vegan.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Mesquite BBQ	Vegan.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Reduced Fat	Vegan.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Jalapeno	No, contains Milk.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Cooked Salt & Vinegar	No, contains Milk.

Want more vegan chips flavors to choose from? Then check our top vegan chips flavors list.

Herr’s Potato Chips Vegan Ingredients

Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.

• Butter
• Buttermilk Solids
• Chipotle Pepper
• Citric Acid
• Corn Oil
• Corn Flour
• Corn Maltodextrin
• Corn Syrup Solids
• Cottonseed
• Dehydrated Onion
• Dextrose
• Disodium Inosinate & Disodium Guanylate
• Dried Parsley
• Extractive Of Paprika
• Garlic Powder
• Green Bell Pepper Powder
• Lactose
• Malic Acid
• Maltodextrin
• Modified Corn Starch
• Modified Tapioca Starch
• Monosodium Glutamate
• Natural And Artificial Flavors
• Natural Mesquite Smoke Flavor
• Natural Smoke Flavor
• Nonfat Dry Milk
• Nonfat Milk
• Onion Powder
• Paprika
• Paprika Extract [Color]
• Parsley
• Potatoes
• Rice Flour
• Salt
• Sodium Diacetate
• Sour Cream
• Soybean
• Spices
• Sugar
• Sunflower Oil
• Tapioca Starch
• Tomato Powder
• Torula Yeast
• Whey

[Source]

As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.

Non-Vegan Ingredients

Milk

There are several ingredients made from milk such as whey, sour cream and lactose that can be found in some of Herr’s chips flavors.

Cow’s milk as you might already know is not vegan.

Questionable Ingredients

Sugar

Sugar can be found in many chips flavors today and the most common sugar used is cane sugar. This is a problem for vegans because this is the only sugar that can sometimes be considered non-vegan. In order for the cane sugar to fit the product it needs to be refined.

In this refining process, the cane sugar is also bleached. A common practice here is to use bone char from dead cows and this does not align well with veganism.

The only way to be sure about this is to contact the company and ask about the production method and if the sugar is in fact cane sugar.

Natural Flavors

This ingredient can be found in many chips flavors and it can be a bit tricky. Companies can add several ingredients to their products and call them natural flavors. The ingredient can be made from both animals and plants.

If the natural flavor is non-vegan is not often disclosed on the ingredients label, however if it contains milk then that is normally disclosed.

This ingredient is vegan more often than not.

Disodium Inosinate & Disodium Guanylate

These ingredients are more often than not made from animal-sourced ingredients, but they can be made from plants as well.

Corn & Soy

So why would I add corn and soy under questionable ingredients? Well these two are the most common GMO crops in USA and this can cause problem for vegans. They required a high amount of herbicide in order to gain good yields and this herbicide is then contaminating the surrounding ecosystem and damaging them beyond repair.

So a lot of vegans try to find product that has the label non GMO project.

FAQ

Are Herr’s Potato Chips Vegetarian?

Most flavors of Herr’s are suitable for all vegetarians with the exception of the flavors Salt & Vinegar, Sour Cream & Onion, Jalapeno which is suited from lacto-ovo and lacto vegetarians.

Flavor	Vegan Status
Herr’s Ripple Potato Chips	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Crisp ‘n Tasty Potato Chips	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Old Bay Chips	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Barbecue Potato Chips	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips	Lacto-Ovo & Lacto.
Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion Flavored Potato Chips	Lacto-Ovo & Lacto.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Original	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Mesquite BBQ	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Reduced Fat	All Vegetarians.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Jalapeno	Lacto-Ovo & Lacto.
Herr’s Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Cooked Salt & Vinegar	Lacto-Ovo & Lacto.

Conclusion

It’s great that Herr’s potato chips have so many vegan flavors, more than 50% of the flavors are vegan. You might think that chips are always vegan, but that is really not the case.

Milk and other animal-derived ingredients is very popular even in chips flavors, so reading the ingredients is very important for vegans when it comes to potato chips. Also learning that some ingredients that might look vegan, can be non-vegan.

I hope you found this article useful.

Thanks for reading, take care!