Luke’s Organic chips – sustainability, review

Luke’s Organic chips are almost always available (and discounted) at the Grocery Outlet – but not always the same varieties. Most varieties are good but I wanted to feature two of the more unusual flavors that I came across recently:

• White Truffle & Sea Salt
• Ketchup with Mustard & Pickle

The White Truffle & Sea Salt chips are not just any old white truffle and sea salt – they’re made with Urbani Italian white truffles and fleur de sel from Guérande, France. I’m pretty wary of truffle-flavored things as often it’s a synthetic truffle flavoring and can be awful, but in this case the truffle is genuine and the chips are really good.

I think they are often sold at Costco too, where they are pretty popular. I wouldn’t eat them in large quantities since they’re quite strong, but that’s a good thing, right? They also have quite a strong salt kick without adding a ton of sodium (see Nutrition Facts, below), thanks to the potent fleur de sel.

Ketchup with Mustard & Pickle is the kind of flavor that does well in the UK or Canada. A Canadian friend brought some ketchup chips into work once and they had a polarizing effect. I quite like Luke’s version and found them to be a good accompaniment to a Beyond Burger, taking the place of fries and burger condiments, all at once!

Luke’s organic potato chips – ingredients

Here are ingredients for the two flavors of Luke’s Organic chips that I’m reviewing here.

White Truffle & Sea Salt – ingredients

Luke’s Organic potatoes, Luke’s Organic sustainable oil blend (sunflower, safflower, and/or red palm fruit oil) Urbani white truffle seasoning (organic tapioca maltodextrin, sea salt, organic white truffle).

Ketchup with Mustard & Pickle – ingredients

Luke’s Organic potatoes, Luke’s Organic sustainable oil blend (red palm fruit oil and avocado oil) Organic seasoning (organic raw cane sugar, organic tomato powder, sea salt, organic maltodextrin, organic onion powder, organic salad mustard [organic vinegar, organic mustard seed, salt, organic turmeric, organic paprika], organic garlic powder, organic white distilled vinegar, organic ground mustard, organic annatto extract, citric acid, organic spices, natural flavor)

The ingredients for the ketchup chips look much more complex at first but it’s really just a sprinkling of some organic spices. Nutritionally, the two chips are so similar that I just included Nutrition Facts for the truffle chips in the image below. The ketchup chips only differ by tiny amounts of sugars, iron and potassium.

Ethical rating for Luke’s Organic chips

Here’s a summary of how I feel about the social and environmental impact of Luke’s Organic chips, which I’m rating 4 out of 5 Green Stars: 

• All of the products are made with organic ingredients (potatoes, vegetable oil, spices, etc.).
• The potatoes are grown on Luke’s Organic owned farms in South Dakota and Oregon.
• Most Luke’s products are vegan – they have some cheese puffs and Cheetos-like snacks too.
• What concerned me though was that their oil blend contains palm oil. I wrote to them to ask about their source and got a full response: “We source palm fruit oil only from small, organic family farms in Ecuador. It is certified Organic, Non-GMO and Fair Trade. Our supplier works with farmers directly to ensure that no deforestation or habitat destruction results from the growing or harvesting process. There are no orangutans in South America. The region in Ecuador where our Organic Red Palm Oil is grown has numerous small family farms, averaging 10 hectares (about 25 acres), interspersed throughout the regional forests. These subsistence farms were planted many years ago and are now being worked by second and third generation farming families.” Because of the massive problems that irresponsibly farmed palm oil has caused, I avoid products with this ingredient unless I know for sure that it’s responsibly-sourced.
• Most of Luke’s Organic products come in large bags – especially those at the Grocery Outlet. I used Luke’s Organic as an example (in a GSP post) on how buying products in larger packages saves on material. I had bought a huge 28 oz. bag of Luke’s Organic chips at the Grocery Outlet and calculated that it uses 8-times less packaging compared to buying 28 x 1 oz. bags.
• Room for improvement: more transparency – they haven’t shared very much information on their company operations from a sustainability standpoint. I believe that Luke’s used to be part of Palm Done Right but are no longer listed on that site.

Summary scores (out of 5) for Luke’s Organic chips

• 4.5 gold stars for quality and value
• 4 green stars for social and environmental impact

If you have a different opinion, please share your rating! Until next time, stay safe : )