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History: Mark McSweeney and his wife opened Great Harvest Bread Co. in 1989, which brought them to Indianapolis, where his wife is from. Great Harvest was a retail whole grain bakery that transitioned into a wholesale business in 2008. In 2013, he started experimenting with making potato chips in a small tabletop fryer he got from Amazon after seeing another small artisan chip business in a city he visited. After a few years of trial and error, he figured out how to make “a really good potato chip using Idaho russet potatoes, and it turned out people loved it,” he said. He started selling the chips locally and started Broad Ripple Chip Co. using the same kitchen as the bread company.
The taste: McSweeney said not many chips are made from russet potatoes because they have a higher sugar content and tend to fry much darker than white potatoes. “Idaho Russet potatoes have more flavor and caramelization, which makes a very tasty potato chip if it isn’t fried too dark, which results in a burnt taste. It’s a fine line between making awesome and burnt chips,” he said.
Flavors: Broad Ripple Chip Co. makes two flavors of chips: original and Sweet & Spicy, which are slightly sweet with a mildly spicy aftertaste. The ratio of sales is about 60% original to 40% Sweet & Spicy, but our “sweet and spicy customers really like that flavor,” he said.
Fun fact: The Food Network’s Alton Brown included the chips in his 2015 Holiday Gift Guide.
Branching out: McSweeney’s two sons, Dylan and Connor, moved to Denver in 2017 and a year later opened a chip company called Denver Chip Co. “They’ve done very well and are a lot busier than we are here,” McSweeney said.
Retail outlets: North-side Kroger locations, Target, Market District, Fresh Thyme, some Meijers, local markets and more.
Headquarters: The chips are fried and bagged in a building at Binford Boulevard and East 62nd Street, just east of Broad Ripple.
Website: broadripplechip.com
—Compiled by Samm Quinn
Editor’s note: This feature has been updated to delete an incorrect quote about Denver having a larger population than Indianapolis.
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