Cheese onion potato chips now outsell 'regular salted' in the UK

The basic salted crisp, pioneered by Smiths's after the First World War, has been at the heart of millions of children's lunch boxes and workers' snacks for generations.

But according to Mintel, the market research firm, the relative upstart flavour of cheese and onion – introduced in the 1960s by Golden Wonder – has toppled ready salted for the first time.

In teh UK, the sales of cheese and onion crisps grew by 15 per cent over the past two years to £256 million – £12 million more than ready salted.

The amount of money spent on salt and vinegar crisps fell by 7 per cent between 2006 and 2008, as did sales of prawn cocktail.

Overall, sales of crisps and savoury snacks grew by 5 per cent to £2.53 billion in 2008