No, The Pringle Pause has nothing to do with the hand contortions you have to perform in order to get the perfect grabbing angle without risking pringle breakage against the tube. Instead, the Pringle Pause is because pringles come in so many different flavours that it can be hard to know which one’s vegan before you tuck in.
In this blog, we’ll list each current flavour of Pringle out there (correct at the time of writing), including the new Rice varieties, so that you can be assured in your snacking!
Please note: recipes can change over time, to be 100% certain it's always best to double-check the recipes yourself. Pringles have been a great accidental vegan food for many years, but a recent recipe change, which as far as we can tell hasn't been announced has limited this list.
Whey powder is now added into a lot of the ingredients lists. So please do make sure to double check.
Which Pringles are Vegan?
For reference, we’re going to list all the vegan Pringle flavours available in the United Kingdom. Worldwide, these flavours could change and ingredients may vary so always check the ingredients on the tube to be safe.
Based on the information currently available and Pringles current recipe at the time of writing this piece, the flavours of Pringles that are vegan friendly are:
● Pringles Original
This looks to be the only flavour of Pringle which is now vegan.
- Dehydrated Potatoes -- Potatoes with the majority of water removed.
- Vegetable Oils -- Corn, sunflower
- Rice Flour
- Wheat Starch
- Corn Flour
- Emulsifier (E471) -- Usually E471 would refer to fatty acids derived from animals, but in Pringles, they are actually taken from plant sources!
- Maltodextrin – A polysaccharide made from starch
- Salt
- Yeast Extract
- Yeast Powder
Perhaps the most surprising find out of that list is the fact that Smokey Bacon Pringles are vegan! Their smokey flavour is derived from wood chips and sawdust which are firstly burned at high temperatures, then their smoke particles condensed into a concentrated liquid which gives off that strong smoke flavouring.
Meanwhile, their bacon flavouring comes from a mix of garlic and onion powders, combined with sugar, spices, coffee and other natural flavourings. Torula yeast is included too which is a type of fungus based yeast that when deactivated and dried can give off a smokey flavouring, so overall this probably adds to the illusion of bacon.
The caramel colouring is just more sugar (so perhaps they’re not the most healthy!) browned at high temperatures.
Which Pringles are not Vegan?
As you’ve probably guessed from such a short list, the list of pringles that aren’t vegan friendly far outweighs those that are and contains some surprising additions.
Unfortunately, vegans should stay away from the below flavours but it is worth noting that all of these pringles flavours are vegetarian friendly:
- Pringles Salt & Vinegar
- Pringles Cheese & Onion
- Pringles Prawn Cocktail
- Pringles Sour Cream & Onion
- Pringles Piri Piri Chicken
- Pringles Paprika
- Pringles Smokey Bacon
- Pringles Texas BBQ Sauce
The main reason for this is because whilst all the products above contain the original ingredients as the vegan friendly pringles, they feature the addition of ingredients derived from dairy products, most notably, milk-derived lactose. This includes the very surprising Salt & Vinegar Pringles, which lists lactose as one of its seasoning flavours for the vinegar!
Are Pringles Rice Fusions Vegan?
Unfortunately, none of the new Pringles Rice Fusion flavours are vegan. Once again, all variations of the product contain ingredients that include lactose, which is of course derived from milk.
In Conclusion:
Thankfully, your snacking doesn’t have to be entirely prohibited! As long as your host or the food spread contains one of the four vegan choices, you can dig in fearlessly. However, due to two of the most popular Pringles flavours being non-vegan friendly, we recommend enquiring as to which flavours have been used if they are not listed or made apparent.
Pringles also do make sure to feature either the Vegan or Vegetarian badge on the front of their 200G tubes, so keep an eye out for those when snack shopping or alternatively, bookmark this blog.
