Tri-Some

We just discovered a slice of home is now available locally. Sterzing’s Potato Chips are the strangest "regular" potato chips you might ever taste. Sterzing’s taste different than any other chip we’ve tried. They’re a bit greasy and not very salty. Others have said the taste reminds them of french fries. Still others claim they taste like KFC batter.

Whatever. We just know they’re delicious.

The Sterzing's chip recipe is the same today as on the day Barney "B.J." Sterzing cooked up his first batch: potatoes, soybean oil, and salt. And while equipment today is more sophisticated the process is essentially the same one B.J. Sterzing devised more than 60 years ago

As a young entrepreneur, Sterzing hit upon the idea for his hard-to-resist chips in the early 1930s, when he owned and operated a candy company.

He was looking for a product his customers could enjoy during the hot, humid Iowa summers that rendered his chocolate candies more suitable for fondue than anything else. The chips were so well-received that during World War II, when chocolate was scarce since most of it went to U.S. servicemen overseas, the chips became Sterzing's primary product.

For the longest time Sterzing’s were only sold in a limited area in southeast Iowa. The company didn’t want to get too big. New stores might open, but they couldn’t necessarily sell Sterzing’s.

The Kum and Go convenience stores now carry Sterzing’s. They’re relatively cheap, compared to other chips. Do what the bag says, Tri-Some.