Doritos announces crisps for women

In what sounds like it could be an April Fool, Doritos has announced plans for crisps specially designed for women.

The “lady-friendly” version of the popular tortilla chips will make less of a crunch noise when you eat them, will be smaller in size and the packet is being specifically designed to fit inside a handbag.

Because struggling to fit packets of crisps in our bags and the noise that comes with eating tortilla chips is clearly of huge concern to women today.

The bosses at PepsiCo, which owns Doritos, believe women don’t want to crunch loudly or lick their fingers when eating crisps around other people, unlike men, apparently.

“When you eat out of a flex bag — one of our single-serve bags — especially as you watch a lot of the young guys eat the chips, they love their Doritos, and they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth, because they don’t want to lose that taste of the flavour, and the broken chips in the bottom,” Indra Nooyi, global chief executive at PepsiCo said in an interview with Freakonomics Radio.

“Women would love to do the same, but they don’t. They don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavour into their mouth.”

This claim has left many women who are in fact partial to pouring crisp crumbs into their mouths perplexed. However Nooyi went on, explaining that Doritos for women are very much in the pipeline.

“It’s not a male and female as much as ‘are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently?’ And yes, we are looking at it, and we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon,” she said.

“For women, low-crunch, the full taste profile, not have so much of the flavour stick on the fingers, and how can you put it in a purse? Because women love to carry a snack in their purse.”

However many women have reacted with incredulity at this claim, revealing that they’ve never had any problems with existing Doritos.

A spokesperson from the Women’s Equality Party said: “No doubt some male consumers will welcome the chance to have a bigger package. But the idea of shrinking products for women, no doubt for the same price, is as old as the Ad Men making these decisions.

“Companies that perpetuate these tired gender stereotypes will continue to lose out on the single biggest consumer group: women.”

And some people have pointed out that whether someone has issues with crunching loudly or pouring crumbs into their mouth has nothing to do with gender, but rather what they deem to be acceptable social etiquette.

Neither Doritos nor PepsiCo has confirmed when or where the new crisps may launch, however under new laws launching later this year by the Advertising Standards Authority, they will not be allowed to be marketed as ladies’ crisps in the UK.

The new law has been conceived in order to ban gender stereotyping in advertising.

It’s safe to say crisps for women certainly do nothing to counter sexist stereotypes.

But despite Nooyi's comments, a spokesperson for PepsiCo told The Independent: "We already have Doritos for women – they’re called Doritos, and they’re enjoyed by millions of people every day. At the same time, we know needs and preferences continue to evolve and we’re always looking for new ways to engage and delight our consumers."