About Cool Hog

Cool Hog is a Black Country snack company built around pork scratchings, founded by Luke Moriarty and run with rather more personality than the category is used to.

What they sell

The catalogue splits into traditional pork scratchings, the lighter pork crunch, and mixed bundles that let you work through the flavours without committing to a box of one. There are more than fifty scratching lines and a couple of dozen crunch varieties, in flavours well past salted, plus a small confectionery and cookie section. Everything is made and sourced in Britain, subscriptions are available, and free delivery starts above a stated order value.

Scratchings and crunch are not the same snack

Worth knowing before you order a box. Traditional scratchings are rind cooked with the fat still attached, which gives the hard, blistered pieces and the deep flavour, and they are heavy going in quantity. Pork crunch is puffed and lighter, closer in texture to a crisp, and easier to eat by the handful. If you are buying for someone who remembers scratchings from a pub bar, they probably want the traditional kind; if you are buying for snacking through a film, crunch is the better call.

The keto question, honestly

These snacks get sold into low-carb eating because pork rind is essentially protein and fat with almost no carbohydrate, and that part is true. What follows from it is more modest than the marketing suggests: a snack being low in carbohydrate does not make it low in calories, and scratchings are calorie-dense and salty. They fit a low-carb diet, they are not a health food, and anyone watching salt intake for blood pressure should read the pack. Check the allergen information on flavoured lines, since seasonings vary.

Using a Cool Hog discount code

Build your box, drop the code into the discount field at checkout, and look at the total before confirming.