Hickory Sticks present a truly Canadian snacking choice

Hickory Sticks were introduced in Canada in the 1970s. Photo by Craig Gilbert/Postmedia

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Is it a boy-girl thing? Husband-wife? Is it a modern power struggle in miniature?

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A thousand tiny choices await inside every bag of Hostess Hickory Sticks.

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Salty, smoky and oh so Canadian, the matchstick shaped potato snacks were introduced in the 1970s, according to Candy Funhouse.

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The diminutive indulgences seem to divide ind ulgers into two camps: A stick a bite, and Ravenclaw.

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“There’s something comforting about them,” Chris Agro posted on the Made in Canada – Canadian Products Facebook group and on Instagram last October. “That crinkle of the brown and yellow bag, the burst of hickory smoke, and the fact that they’re still ours.”

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He said he eats them by the handful and his wife eats them one at a time. Either way, each are likely to have less salt and other toppings on their hands than they would if they were disagreeing about a more conventional chip.

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Are you in one camp or the other? Or are you like this sensible commenter: “I tilt the bag directly into my mouth ahaha.”

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Ahaha, indeed.

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Hickory Sticks are also an unlikely orphan of capitalism. Canadians of a certain vintage will remember all manner of Hostess snack products on the shelves in decades past. The smoky little survivors are the last product bearing the brand after a merger with Lay’s in 1988 (parent PepsiCo bought out General Foods’ remaining interest in 1992). The Hostess brand chips were revived as Munchies in 2024.

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Hostess the company started with Edward Snyder cooking chips on his mother’s kitchen stove in a village outside Kitchener, Ont. in 1935. It wasn’t until the 1950s that potato chips entered the snacking zeitgeist.

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Recent limited edition variations have included salt and vinegar and ketchup hickory sticks, both also favourite Canadian flavours. As is, it would seem, a similar snack called Straight Outta The Sticks by Hardbite Chips, founded in B.C. in 1998.

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“Made for those who like to kick in the sticks and crush a bag of chips solo,” the company’s website reads. 

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There’s no advice on how many to eat at a time included (ahaha!).

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