Hula Hoops are a potato-based snack, in the shape of short, hollow cylinders. They were first introduced in 1973. Hula Hoops come in several different flavors. They are produced by KP Snacks. In 2008, KP launched a new variety made with corn, called 'Hula Hoops Tortilla', which come in Cool Original, Chilli Salsa, and Nacho Cheese flavours.[1]
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Known as a British snack, Hula Hoops are golden-brown hoops. An average bag contains 25–30 hoops with the main ingredients being potato, sunflower oil, rice flour, and salt.
Original flavour Hula Hoops come in a small 25g foil pack. The front of it is light to medium red, with a picture of a large mustard hoop, which covers three quarters of the pack, with the words ‘HULA HOOPS’ inside the hoop. Underneath it says ‘original’, then ‘potato rings’.
Danisco Flexible produced exclusive packs of Hula Hoops for KP Foods to make a 10 year-old boy's dream come true. James McKelvie won the chance to have his own invented flavour of Hula Hoops – Olive and Caper – produced when he appeared on the BBC's What Ever You Want television show. In 2009, a Hula Hoops advert featured The Village People song '"Y.M.C.A." in the background, as two hands with a couple of Hula Hoops on their fingers danced. In the UK, puzzle games are included on the packs, such as "Hula Ball" and "Hoop 'Boules'".
The following flavours were available for a short time either because they tied-in with special promotions, or failed to meet sales expectations:
For a short while in the early 2000's, KP produced Hula Hoops Shoks[2][3] These were minature versions of the classic Hula Hoop, but had a much more intense flavour than the bags. They were packaged in either a stiff flexible plastic cube, or in a small resealable pot. They were available in the following flavours:
In 2001, KP launched Hula Hoops XL[4], which were larger-than-normal Hula Hoops. They were packaged larger bags and were available in a limited range of flavours, but recorded poor sales and were soon dropped. Each bag was black with a large XL logo on the front, with the flavour overlaid. They were available in the following flavours:
In 2011, XL had a succesor with Big Hoops[5]. Essentially the same design as the XL range, they were targetted towards adults who had memories of placing regular sized hoops onto their fingers, but could no longer do so. They are currently available in 160g bags intended for sharing. Big Hoops are available in the following flavours:
Each 25g bag of the original Hula Hoops contains 129 calories. They also contain 0.8g of protein, 15.4g of carbohydrates, 7.1g of fat, 0.5g of fibre, and 0.2g of Sodium. These values vary between flavours.
In 2010, Hula Hoops partnered with Sport Relief to organize mass hula hoop displays. The Hoopathons were on Sunday 21 March, and 1,388 people took part to set a Guinness World record-breaking largest number of people to hula-hoop simultaneously across the United Kingdom for two minutes.[6]