Paqui, the maker of extremely spicy tortilla chips marketed as the “One Chip Challenge,” is voluntarily pulling the product from shelves after a woman said her teenage son died of complications from consuming a single chip.
The chips were sold individually, and their seasoning included two of the hottest peppers in the world: the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper.
Each chip was packaged in a coffin-shaped container with a skull on the front.
Lois Wolobah told NBC Boston that her 14-year-old son, Harris Wolobah, ate the chip Friday, then went to the school nurse with a stomachache. Wolobah said Harris — a sophomore at Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester, Massachusetts — passed out at home that afternoon. He was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day, she said.
Until sales of the product were suspended, Paqui’s marketing dared people to participate in the challenge by eating a chip, posting pictures of their tongues on social media after the chip turned it blue and then waiting as long as possible to relieve the burn with water or other food.
The challenge has existed in some form since 2016.
Yeah, this sounds like a case where if they packaged it like other chips, it would just mean instead of throwing out a small amount of plastic per chip eaten, you’re throwing out a chip bag worth of plastic along with most of the other chips after you and maybe some friends take one.
It’s like buying the bigger size that’s slightly more expensive only to realize it would have been cheaper to buy the smaller one because the extra stuff got thrown out after it went bad plus there’s extra packaging, even if the value per unit is worse.
I try to explain this to my wife every time she buys the humongous restaurant-size jar of mayonnaise… “But it was buy 2 get one half off…”
I exaggerate, but only slightly.