This Million Dollar New Lay’s Flavor Is Heading to Stores

If you pay close attention to potato chip news (hey, us, too), you’ve been patiently waiting for the new Lay’s flavor, Bacon Grilled Cheese, to finally hit stores. Welp, good news. Bacon Grilled Cheese Lay’s have been spotted at King Soopers, according to food news Instagrammer Markie Devo, which means they should be rolling out at a Kroger-owned grocery store near you soon, if they haven’t already.

Do Bacon Grilled Cheese Lay’s sound familiar? There’s a reason for that.

Bacon Grilled Cheese was the winning flavor in Lay’s most recent Do Us a Flavor competition, in which the potato chip behemoth asks fans to submit flavor ideas for a chance at winning a $1 million grand prize. The other prize? Getting to taste your dream chip flavor in real life, obvi.

Out of 700,000 submissions, three flavor finalists made it into production last April, and then the public voted on their favorite. Bacon Grilled Cheese—submitted by Paula George in Sapulpa, Oklahoma—beat out Valentina & Lime Lay’s, as well as Korean-Style Fried Chicken Wavy Lay’s.

Is the winning Lay’s flavor any good?

While voters certainly thought so, the Sporked team was…ambivalent. We taste tested all three of the Do Us a Flavor flavors back in April, and our favorite was actually Valentina & Lime—and that flavor only earned 6.5 Sporks. We gave Bacon Grilled Cheese a middling 5.5 Spork score (ouch). No shade to Paula—our problem was with the execution, not the idea. As my colleague Ariana Losch wrote in her review:

“This flavor was very divisive in the office. Personally, I find it unoffensive. It has the vague essence of french fries loaded with bacon and American cheese. But plenty of people tried this new Lay’s flavor and made faces of immediate displeasure. I really think it depends on your tolerance for processed cheese and artificial smoke. My biggest gripe is that I wish it had a toasted bread thing going for it. They kept the flavor pretty simple and pared back…and they still didn’t make it taste very good, to be honest.”

Hey, maybe liquid smoke and processed cheese are your jam! If so, keep an eye out for the new Lay’s flavor.

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.