Smith's Zinger-flavoured potato chips are here

Zinger pies? Gravy-flavoured crisps? Bah. They're yesterday's junk food mash-ups.

Zinger-flavoured Smith's chips are now a thing and they've already infiltrated Coles.

Yes. Zinger chips. The marketing departments at KFC Australia and Smith's Snackfood Company have put their highly-paid heads together and come up with the cheapest grab for snackable, viral content since Cadbury put Vegemite in a chocolate block.

"Zinger burgers are the most popular burgers at KFC Australia," Fritz Meyer, KFC's chief food innovation and technology officer, said in a statement.

"We're so excited to bring this iconic flavour to consumers in a new way, giving it to our customers in an on-the-go, any time, always available product."

If you do want to eat your Zinger chips inside the colonel's walls and facilitate their crinkle-cut destiny of being dipped in a tub of potato and gravy (you know it's inevitable), you'll have to BYO chips for now. Zinger chips are currently on the shelves at Coles, and will be available at KFC stores from September 8.

Even though I'm on record as saying the Zinger Pie is a malignant whitehead, KFC likes to send me new products to try. I assume this is because of a) my job title and b) I find the dirty bird's seasoning guiltily pleasing.

Zinger Smith's chips landed on my desk yesterday. And the verdict? They taste nothing like a hot and spicy Zinger chicken burger.

In fact, they're not much chop at all. The flavour is almost identical to Smith's barbecue chips and I don't think anyone above the age of six has ever been excited about those (Burger Rings on the other hand…).

There's a slight smack of chilli at the backend that disappears as quickly as I'm sure these chips will during Friday night football, but none of that supercharged, pupil-dilating savouriness that makes the Zinger "the most popular burger at KFC Australia" and an enemy of public-health professionals everywhere.

I suppose if you had any creamy dip lying around it would make a good snacking mate to the Zinger chips' paprika-led flavour. Actually, there's an idea: "Burger Ring Jatz". And you could sell them in combo pack with french onion dip.

When Kraft, Smith's and Arnott's join forces, I want a considerable cut.