The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the biggest yet — 48 nations, three host countries, and a summer of football stretching from Vancouver to Mexico City. So we did the only reasonable thing a potato chip directory can do with a global tournament: we went looking for the most iconic homegrown chip from every country that qualified.
The rules were simple. Potato only — no corn, no tortilla, no plantain. And it had to be a genuinely domestic brand, a chip that means something in its home country, not just wherever a multinational happens to ship. Some nations turned out to have no real chip of their own. Others have absolute legends.
Start in the Americas. Mexico gave us Sabritas, founded in Mexico City in 1943 and once delivered across the capital by a fleet of thirty bicycles. Brazil has Elma Chips, whose bags carry flavors you'll find nowhere else — onion and parsley, churrasco. Argentina's Pehuamar was born in 1964 when a family moved from Pehuajó to Mar del Plata to fry potatoes; the name fuses the two towns. Colombia has the wavy, lime-dusted Margarita, and Ecuador and Uruguay chip in with Banchis and Manolo.
Europe is where it gets competitive. France fields Bret's, a Breton brand frying local potatoes into sophisticated flavors like Camembert and Bleu d'Auvergne. Germany counters with funny-frisch, whose Chipsfrisch Ungarisch — Hungarian paprika — is the single best-selling chip flavor in the country. Belgium brings Croky and its unmistakable Bolognese, Austria brings Kelly's (founded, improbably, by an American GI who stayed in Vienna after the war), and Norway brings Maarud, which has been bagging 'Potetgull' — potato gold — since 1936. Add Czechia's Bohemia, Croatia's Čipi Čips, and Sweden's beloved OLW, and you have a group of death.
Africa and the Middle East bring flavor in every sense. Egypt's Chipsy is so ubiquitous that the word itself became the generic Egyptian term for chips. South Africa's Simba — lion mascot, Mrs Ball's Chutney flavor — has ruled since 1957. Iran's Maz Maz opened the country's first industrial chip plant in 1991; Jordan's Mr. Chips is a regional household name; Saudi Arabia's Tasali makes chips shaped like Arabic letters; and Morocco, Algeria, and Iraq send Frita, Mahboul, and Mr. Krisper.
Then Asia and Oceania. Japan's Koikeya mass-produced the country's first potato chips and later invented the fiery Karamucho line. South Korea's Nongshim turns real potato into a national staple. And New Zealand's Bluebird — 'Bird, bird, bird, Bluebird's the word' — has been a Kiwi institution since a converted Auckland wash house started frying them in 1953.
Not every nation made the cut, and we didn't fake it. Plenty of qualifiers — Portugal, Turkey, Qatar, and others — are essentially Lay's import markets with no iconic domestic potato chip to call their own. Better an honest gap than a mystery bag.
Twenty-five nations, twenty-five chips, one very salty bracket. Browse the full collection, grouped by confederation, and see who your palate is backing this summer.