“Potato based” on a label means the snack is made from a prepared potato mixture rather than from slices of fresh potato. Typically, potato flakes or granules and potato starch are combined with other starches and water into a dough, cooked and shaped in an extruder, then cut and dried into small, hard pellets.
Those pellets are the basis of three-dimensional snacks. In hot oil, the moisture left inside flashes into steam and puffs each pellet to two or three times its size, giving a light, hollow shape with a crunchy shell. Lay’s Play 3D Shape Potato Snack Cheese Pizza Flavor is 60.4% potato-based ingredient, fried in palm olein (32.5%) and seasoned, and its label also lists starch-based stabilizers and a raising agent.
Because the exact recipe of the base is not given, it may include starches or flours other than potato, so the allergen statement is the place to look for wheat. The Thai label calls it “mixed potato”.
