When entrepreneur Grahame Armitage sat down for a drink at the White Swan in Stokesley, little did he know the trip to the pub would spurn his next big business idea.
But as the 71-year-old watched a group of punters tear open a bag of crisps to share in January, he came up with a new flavour of crisp - and a dip to dunk them in.
Grahame, who runs wholesale distribution company Crofter’s Foods in Thirsk, decided it was time for salt and vinegar and prawn cocktail to move to one side because the world was ready for chicken parmesan crisps.
Fast forward just six months and Smoggy’s Chicken Parmo Crisps are now here and aiming to “disrupt the market” - and Grahame says he has already had a “phenomenal” reception.
The Teesside delicacy, made up of breadcrumbed chicken, bechamel sauce, and cheddar cheese, has been a top selling takeaway dish for decades, first being invented in the 1950s.
And for dad-of-four Grahame, the question was whether it could be replicated in crisp form - and pair it with the right amount of garlic dip, something he now describes as a “masterstroke”.
Grahame, who launched Crofter’s Foods with his wife Jane in 2005 after selling shares in Teesside food manufacturer SK Foods, already knew the crisps market through being a distributor for Yorkshire - and decided to get to work.
“I was on my own in a pub in January and I sat watching a couple of tables get some crisps, open a bag up, and start sharing them", he recalled.
“I thought, have they got a dip as well? I thought, crisps and a dip, what would that be? It would be garlic mayo - but what flavour crisps? And I thought of chicken parmo.
“The challenge was then making these - there is no point having a crisps that doesn’t taste good, and a parmo is difficult to replicate."
Huddersfield-born Grahame took several parmos from Pizza Village in Stokesley to a flavourhouse in Bristol in a bid to recreate the taste.
He also took them with him to the first development samples at the crisp factory in Yorkshire to make sure the team had hit the nail on the head.
Smoggy’s eventually settled on a flavour profile of a strong cheese taste, followed by the chicken flavour, finished off with creamy taste from the bechamel sauce.
“I spent quite a bit of time weighing out the crisps and garlic mayo so that they were the appropriate sizes", the Stokesley resident said.
Grahame, a grandad-of-two, then had to come up with a name, settling on Smoggy’s after a sleepless night thinking of where to take the brand.
Soon after he registered the company name and got to work on designing the bag that had a distinct Teesside identity - with landmarks such as the Transporter Bridge taking centre stage.
He said he felt Smoggy’s was perfect because the term - originally coined by Newcastle and Sunderland football supporters for Middlesbrough fans as a reference to the industrial smog from the 1970s - is now worn as a “badge of honour” by Teessiders.
Since hitting the market in mid June, Grahame, who admits he treats himself to a fully fledged chicken parmo from time to time, said the response had been hugely positive.
He explained: “We did a free crisp sampling at the White Swan over the weekend and we went to the Orange Pip Market in Middlesbrough on Saturday (June 27).
“People loved the idea of the dip - we are trying to get the crisps synonymous with it. It is great to see the response on social media too.”
There are now more than 50 places stocking Smoggy’s, including the likes of Five Houses in Crathorne, Strickland and Holt in Yarm.
Kevin Polley, who runs eight Nisa Local stores in Thirsk, Ripon, Darlington, Stockton and Howden, was one of the early adopters, placing an order as soon as he heard the idea.
Ian Hunter-Smith, who runs Penny On The Move at Scaling Dam on the A171 to Whitby, has also become one of the biggest sellers of the lines since launch.
Local businesses remain at the core of Smoggy's too, with the crisps being made in Sheffield, the dips by NE Food Packers in Seaham, and the website and brand created in Stockton.
It might be early days - but if things go well, there could be scope for potential new flavours based on popular parmo toppings - including a hot shot.
You can find out where to get your hands on a bag of Smoggy's here.
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There are a lot of theories about the origin of the parmo.
This includes one about a student, aptly called Mustafa Parmo, who had a bad case of the munchies and created a dish using random contents from his fridge.
But the strongest theory revolves around a US soldier, possibly an army chef, called Nicos Harris, who opened the American Grill on Linthorpe Road in Middlesbrough.
He began serving parmesans there in 1958 - and it is said that he based his speciality on a dish he’d tasted in his childhood in the US in the 1930s, which was itself based on the parmigiana – a shallow fried breaded meat cutlet, often veal, which came from Parma in northern Italy.
And, as they say, the rest is history.
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