People say that there’s no such thing as a free lunch but with Walker’s crisps that’s not true. That’s because consumers buying packets of the crisps have a one in six chance of winning a free lunch. Walkers owner PepsiCo says this will enable retailers to ’add some crunch’ to their lunchtime sales.

Retailers need to sign up with voucher company Valassis in order to be able to participate in the promotion. The ’luncheon’ vouchers, which are worth £4, are valid for 14 days. Now that bit foxed me because I thought ’how do they know when I opened the crisps?’. That’s because I imagined that the vouchers would be in packets of crisps but they’re not, consumers have to enter their pack code onto a website to see if they have won and then redeem their win. They can do this by opting to receive a voucher in the post; using the Shopitize app; or buying their lunch, uploading their receipt on the Walkers website and getting a refund via Paypal.

Now for me, this is where I lost interest. You see I know PepsiCo will say their target audience likes this sort of interaction etc, but I always think that competitions where you have to log in codes etc put people off, therefore redemption is lower than a real instant win and whoever is running the promotion doesn’t have to give as much away.

But although I’ve lost interest myself, I’m sure it will be a success. I love the premise of a free lunch. I was concerned about what constituted lunch but was told by a Walkers sales rep that it could really be anything up to the value of £4 as long as it included a packet of Walkers crisps so now I know.

Sticking with PepsiCo, that aforementioned sales rep, also introduced me to Doritos Roulette (I was at a trade show and he was manning the impressive Walkers stand). Each bag of Doritos Roulette contains a number of ultra spicy chips among the cheese ones. When I asked how many ’a number’ was, I was told one in every handful so I stood there and ate them until I got the hot one. And boy was it hot, but it was also very good!

And at last month’s Forecourt Show in Birmingham, Jelly Bean announced that it was extending its BeanBoozled line into a 54g sharing bag format. BeanBoozled features classic flavours such as tutti flavour as well as the less appetising stinky socks and rotten egg. I dare you to try them.

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