Uglies Kettle Chips won some awards. I tried the entire lineup.

This edition of Snackology is gonna get ugly.

Because we’re diving into the full lineup of Uglies Kettle Chips today.

This newsletter is no stranger to potato chips. And while Lay’s and Pringles have been featured prominently in Snackology, I always enjoy finding a smaller brand that’s doing really good — and really fun — work. Earlier this year, I brought you my thoughts on all five regular flavors of Chicago’s Local Style chips. We’re going to almost double that chip haul with Uglies’s nine varieties of kettle chips.

I’ve picked up a bag or two of Uglies from my local Lidl before, but if you’re unfamiliar with the brand, their pitch is that they use “upcycled” potatoes, which are “potatoes that are odd sizes or shapes, have varied colors or sugar content, which fail to meet the beauty standards of some manufacturers. Some might be slightly blemished, and some may just be farmer surplus, but to be clear, the potatoes we use are NOT diseased, rotting or unripe.”

Uglies have been around since 2017, but the brand underwent a major visual upgrade in 2022, adopting a quirky logo and introducing Ugly, its potato mascot.

One of my favorite parts of Local Style chips is that each bag gets its own mascot, so you better believe that I love how Uglies features its mascot in a different costume or situation on each flavor of its chips.

Uglies popped onto my radar again last week thanks to the company’s trio of Sweet Potato Chips scoring a handful of awards. If these chips were award winners, Snackology needed to give them a try.

What they cost

According to Uglies, a typical full-size bag will retail for between $3.99 and $4.49.

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My thoughts

Uglies Sweets! Sweet Potato Chips

Maybe I’ve made this up in my head, but it feels like there was a moment in the early 2000s when sweet potato chips and fries suddenly burst onto the scene. I remember my dad suggesting that I get the sweet potato fries at the fancy steakhouse we used to go to around the holidays. (We also went to this steakhouse before my senior ball, but that’s only after the sane folks in my group defeated the people who wanted to go to Wendy’s instead.) Sweet potato chips and fries always felt elevated.

Every potato chip is unique, but Uglies takes that to another level. Thanks to those upcycled potatoes, you never know what shape or size the next chip out of the bag will be.

Sweets! Sweet Potato Chips are an excellent baseline sweet potato chip. Maybe there could be a touch more salt, but these chips are light and deliver a satisfying shatter when you bite into them.

Uglies Hot Honey Sweet Potato Chips

Uglies Hot Honey Sweet Potato Chips was the flavor that was named a 2026 Best New Product Award Winner by Convenience Store News. I trust that Convenience Store News knows its stuff, so I was very much looking forward to this flavor of sweet potato chip.

Hot honey is everywhere right now. Just this past weekend, my daughter and I had lunch at &Pizza, and I bought one of their American Honey pizzas. The heat delivered from this Uglies flavor is all flavor. If you’re worried about a potato chip where the heat builds as you dig deeper into the bag, you can eat Uglies Hot Honey Sweet Potato Chips without fear.

Uglies Spicy BBQ Sweet Potato Chips

One of my all-time favorite chip flavors is Utz Southern Sweet Heat Barbeque Potato Chips. They’re the perfect combo of, well, sweet and heat. Uglies has come pretty close to capturing that pairing here, bringing “the great flavor of a sweet and spicy summer barbecue” to a sweet potato chip.

Uglies Sea Salt Kettle Chips

It’s time for the standard kettle chip part of the Uglies lineup, and what better place to start than with the brand’s Sea Salt Kettle Chips?

Like with the Sweets! Sweet Potato Chips, I thought this flavor could use a touch more salt when eating them alone. That said, the flavor and structural integrity of this flavor of kettle chips are made for transporting a container of French onion dip into your mouth. All of the kettle chips in the Uglies lineup are thicker and crunchier than their sweet potato counterparts.

Uglies Bar-B-Que Kettle Chips

While Uglies Spicy BBQ Sweet Potato Chips delivered an amped-up take on the barbecue chip, Uglies Bar-B-Que Kettle Chips sticks with the flavor notes that have made this flavor a standard in any lineup of snacks.

While our daughter at first enjoyed the Spicy BBQ Sweet Potato flavor (probably because I forgot to tell her that they had a bit of a kick), she preferred this flavor when joining me for the taste test. It always surprises me that the girl who once described marinara sauce as “spicy” loves barbecue chips.

Uglies Salt & Vinegar Kettle Chips

When I began writing this section, I wrote: “Historically, I’m not a salt and vinegar guy when it comes to chips.” I then jumped back to my review of Graza’s chips to see how I graded their Sea Salt & Vinegar chips only to discover that — no joke — I began my thoughts on that flavor with: “Historically, I’m not a salt and vinegar guy when it comes to chips.” Wild.

Anyway, historically, I’m not a salt and vinegar guy when it comes to chips. But like with Graza’s take on the flavor, I found myself snacking on additional Salt & Vinegar Kettle Chips after I finished taking pictures of this flavor. Maybe I’ve just been eating the wrong salt-and-vinegar chips my entire life?

Uglies Buffalo Ranch Kettle Chips

A few things about buffalo-flavored chips. First, buffalo wings should always be paired with bleu cheese. Not ranch. But I get why ranch is pretty much always the flavor partner of choice when it comes to a chip infused with the magic of buffalo sauce. Bleu cheese might not play as well as a chip flavoring.

And second, go Bills.

Anyways, Uglies Buffalo Ranch Kettle Chips are a solid take on this flavor combo. I’ve had buffalo ranch chips from other brands, and using a kettle chip really elevates the flavor.

Uglies Jalapeño Kettle Chips

When I reviewed Local Style chips in May, the brand’s Hot Giardiniera flavor turned out to be my favorite. (It’s the flavor that I most often snag a bag of when I’m at my local beer shop.) Going into this expansive taste test, I had a hunch that Uglies Jalapeño Kettle Chips would be near the top of my rankings.

I was right. Of all Uglies’s chips, this flavor announces itself the second you open the bag. These chips bring the heat. Unlike with Uglies Spicy BBQ Sweet Potato Chips, though, the heat does build as you continue to eat chip after chip.

Uglies Cheddar & Sour Cream Kettle Chips

For a small chip company, Uglies is tackling a remarkable range of chips — both in standard kettle and sweet potato — across its nine current flavors. Let’s close out this edition of Snackology with another classic: Cheddar & Sour Cream.

This chip has a rich cheddar flavor, and thanks to the hint of sour cream, I’d recommend using them to bring down the heat after eating way too many Uglies Jalapeño Kettle Chips.

Uglies Kettle Potato Chips were provided to Snackology for this independent review.

Snackology is a publication of The Omnicosm.
Issue No. 349

Snackology is written and produced by Bill Kuchman.
Copyediting by Tim Kuchman.

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