Where the honest story has to start
There is no product origin record here for Monster Munch itself, so this will not be a tidy tale about the exact afternoon somebody decided a giant foot shaped corn snack belonged in British lunchboxes. What can be said properly is the story of the name on the front of the box. Walkers was founded in Leicester in 1948 by Henry Walker, although the family had been in food in that city for a good deal longer. Henry James Walker moved from Mansfield in the 1880s to take over a butcher's shop on the High Street, and the business stayed in meat until post war rationing made that difficult. Managing director R.E. Gerrard steered the company towards potato crisps instead. The earliest bags were hand sliced, fried, sprinkled with salt and sold for threepence.
A brand that seasons the way Britain eats
Walkers built its flavour range out of things people were already eating. Cheese and Onion arrived in 1954, drawing on the Ploughman's lunch. Salt and Vinegar followed in 1967, borrowed more or less directly from fish and chips. Prawn Cocktail turned up in the 1970s while the dinner party starter was having its moment, and Roast Chicken took its cue from the British roast dinner. Nobody has handed us an origin for Roast Beef Monster Munch, and we are not going to invent one, but it does sit comfortably inside that same national instinct: take a familiar plate of British food, turn the seasoning up until it is faintly ridiculous, and put it in a bag.
How Monster Munch came to sit under the Walkers name
The corporate part deserves one short paragraph, because it explains the box rather than the snack. The Walker family sold the business in 1970 to Standard Brands, which later merged with Nabisco to form Nabisco Brands in 1981, and PepsiCo has owned Walkers since 1989. Walkers today is associated not only with its own potato crisps but with sub brands and snack names including Quavers, Wotsits and Monster Munch. That distinction is worth keeping straight. Walkers is the banner Monster Munch is sold under in Britain and Ireland, which is not the same as Walkers having dreamed up the monster. Within PepsiCo, Walkers serves as the regional equivalent of Lay's, and that is precisely why British shoppers abroad go looking for the Walkers name rather than a global stand in.
Three flavours, three different moods
Pickled Onion is the loud one. Sharp vinegar and onion, audible from the next room, difficult to eat without somebody working out what you have had, carrying the same tang as chip shop vinegar or a pickled onion on a Boxing Day plate. Roast Beef is the savoury, brown, faintly meaty one that people who insist they have no favourite tend to reach for first. Sweet and Spicy Flamin' Hot brings the heat, and is usually the bag being negotiated over by whoever in the house likes a bit of a burn with their corner shop nostalgia. Four of each, twelve in total, and no possible way of pleasing everybody. That is arguably the whole point of a variety box.
Why a variety box travels so well
For British shoppers in Canada, a Monster Munch 12 pack does a surprising amount of quiet work. It covers three separate memories in one box: the corner shop on the walk home, the packed lunch opened slightly too early on the coach, the parcel from family where the padding was suspiciously generous. Explaining Monster Munch to anyone who did not grow up with it is close to impossible and thankfully unnecessary, because the right person only has to see the paws on the front and they are already halfway back to a school corridor. Whether the box lands in Halifax, Toronto or somewhere with more snow than sense, it rarely survives the week. A nod from The Great British Shop to all three monsters, and to whoever gets the last Pickled Onion.
