Hostess chips: The silver foil bag

Hostess chips in a silver foil bag in 1986.

Source: Facebook/Old Toronto Series

(May be subject to copyright)

The other day I was driving past the local Dollarama on my way to work, and I started thinking about chips. The Dollarama has become my go-to place for cheap chips. It got me thinking back to the days when I was a kid and chips were really cheap.

More than that, they didn’t all look the same.

There was one brand in particular that stands out for packaging, price and flavour.

But also for where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with.

Foiled
They were the chip in the silver foil bag. Long before the plastic bags that all chips seem to come in now, Hostess chips came in a foil bag. Different flavours had different coloured bands. Plain, or regular as they were called then, had a blue band; salt and vinegar had a yellow band; barbecue and ketchup had red bands; and sour cream n’ onion had a green band;

Free bag
Those foil bags also contained a cool, yet very simple, promotion. Periodically, a bag had a coupon for a free bag.

There wasn’t a separate coupon in the bag, or anything like that. Instead, the coupon was printed on the inside of the bag itself. The coupon took up pretty much the whole inside of one half of the bag. It was so cool to open up a bag and instantly see you won a free one.

The best part was you could redeem that pretty much on the spot at Mac’s, Red Rooster or wherever we bought chips.

Summer fun
For four or five summers in a row, I spent a couple weeks in Brooks, and various cousins would spend a couple weeks at our place.

When I stayed in Brooks, at my Aunt Monica’s place, My Oma Vogt gave each of us cousins a dollar to go to the store. There was a Mac’s within walking or biking distance. Hostess chips were 25 cents a bag. Oma’s dollar bill for each of us, in the days before the loonie, bought us four bags of chips. 

Alternatively, on a hot summer day, she would tells us to get ice cream. In that case, the dollar got us a couple Dingbat ice cream novelties, either plain or mint flavoured.

The first year, we really did this, my cousin Fred shared a theory with me. He figured there was a free bag one in every four bags.

More often than not, he was right.

Parting thoughts
Those summers in Brooks really made me feel connected to that side of my family, especially my cousins and my grandmother. Beyond that, my cousins always made me feel welcome and included.

A few years ago, I went to visit my Cousin Fred in Brooks, and he joked that I knew his friends better than he did.

Some of my best memories are just hanging out, talking and walking around Brooks.

Usually we had a silver foil bag in our hands, hoping it had another free one inside.