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Real History

Real crisps is a hand-cooked crisp manufacturer and was established in 1997 in South Wales with the objective of introducing hand-cooked crisps to a wider consumer audience, mainly through pubs and independent retailers.

The company's base near Newport in Gwent offered good centres of population to sell Real crisps via it's van sales operation. After a few months the company began serving wholesalers around the UK and achieving wider distribution.

In early 1999 The Directors of Bar and Restaurant Foods Ltd- (a local company supplying pub and restaurant chains with meal ingredients, sauces etc) made personal investments in  Real Crisps, enabling the company the finances to grow. The company then changed its' name to Sirhowy Valley Foods Ltd.

Shortly afterwards the first listings were achieved in supermarkets in South Wales, with Tesco being the first group to recognise the potential, listing the brand in it's 37 South Wales branches. Asda soon followed, as did Sainsburys.

In June 06, Real Crisps received an award from Asda, naming the company as having had the greatest growth with Asda of any company starting as a regional supplier since the regional food programme began.

In 2000 Real Crisps moved into bigger premises (10,000 squ.ft.) in Cwmfelinfach due to the production capacity restrictions of its' original factory.

In 2002 Real Crisps began making private label crisps for a couple of the major supermarkets in the UK.

Our current factory, where we have lived since summer 2005, gives us plenty of expansion space. At 65,000 square ft. it is over 6 times the size of our previous factory and should be our home for many years to come.

In November 2007, Real Crisps announced their acuisition by the Tayto Group.