Hula Hoops are a crisp made out of potatoes that are sold in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, in the shape of short, hollow cylinders. They were first introduced in 1973. Hula Hoops come in several flavours. They are produced by parent company KP Snacks. In 2008, KP launched a new variety made with corn, called 'Hula Hoops Tortilla', which come in Cool Original, Chilli Salsa, and Nacho Cheese flavours.
Contents
Flavours and packet colours
Former flavours
The following flavours were available for a short time either because they tied-in with special promotions, or failed to meet sales expectations:
Big O's
In 1998, KP launched 'Big O's' from Hula Hoops, using Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in their advertising campaign as their characters the Self-Righteous Brothers. Big O's were larger-than-normal Hula Hoops, packaged in larger bags and only available in Beef & Mustard flavour. The bag design used a black background featuring a large Big O's logo. A smaller Hula Hoops logo featured in the bottom-corner whilst the flavour was in the opposite bottom-corner. Big O's are no longer in production nor available.
Shoks
For a short while in the early 2000s, KP produced Hula Hoops Shoks These were miniature versions of the classic Hula Hoop, but had a much more intense flavour than the bags. They were packaged in either a stiff flexible plastic cube, or in a small resealable pot. They were available in the following flavours:
Hula Hoops XL
In 2001, KP launched Hula Hoops XL, which were larger-than-normal Hula Hoops, much like the previous Big O's incarnation. They were packaged larger bags and were available in a limited range of flavours, but recorded poor sales and were soon dropped. Each bag was black with a large XL logo on the front, with the flavour overlaid. They were available in the following flavours:
Frozen Hula Hoops
In late 1999, KP produced Hula Hoops that could be cooked at home. Frozen Hula hoops were not a crisp based snack, they were more like Hash Browns. They began production again in 2013 as part of a range of frozen versions of crisps, this time exclusive to Iceland stores.
Big Hoops
In 2011, XL had a successor with Big Hoops. Essentially the same design as the XL range, they were targeted towards adults who had memories of placing regular sized hoops onto their fingers, but could no longer do so. They are currently available in 160g bags intended for sharing. Big Hoops are available in the following flavours:
Nutritional information
Each 25g bag of the original Hula Hoops contains around 129 calories. They also contain 0.8g of protein, 15.4g of carbohydrates, 7.1g of fat, 0.5g of fibre, and 0.2g of Sodium. These values vary between flavours.
Marketing slogans/formula
Charity
In 2010, Hula Hoops partnered with Sport Relief to organize mass hula hoop displays. The Hoopathons were on Sunday 21 March, and 1,388 people took part to set a Guinness World record-breaking largest number of people to hula-hoop simultaneously across the United Kingdom for two minutes.