There's A Better Version Of Takis You Need To Know About

Zachary Quinto, Zach Braff, Zac Efron, Zack Snyder—America has an abundance of dudes named Zach. Add Zack Gazzaniga to the list, because his tortilla chip company, Zack's Mighty, makes a product that just might just rival Takis.

Zack's Mighty is a chip company based in New York. It specializes in tortilla chips, but also rolled tortilla chips, aka Takis. What separates Zack's Mighty from other tortilla chip companies? Well, for starters, the quality of ingredients and sustainable farming practices. Per its website, "In 2022, we became the first chips to be made with certified regenerative corn." Here's what that means:

This certification provides a whole-farm assurance of regeneration and sustainability, measuring benefits for soil, water, air, biodiversity, infrastructure, animal welfare, and social responsibility.

Our partner farms spent two years in partnership with A Greener World, evaluating farm standards, plans, and auditing procedures in order to become Certified Regenerative.

You can read all about the process via the Zack's Mighty website, but basically, it boils down to the company having good farming ethics, which many snack companies don't have. Even more interesting is that this Zack dude apparently went to Italy, acquired something called Otto File flint corn—a very flavorful type of corn used for polenta—and grew it himself for the company. This is a crazy amount of time, effort, and resources to put into glorified Takis, and you can sense there's a real passion here.

That's all well and good, but how do these rolled tortilla chips fare against the classic snack they imitate?

Despite my initial skepticism about this "gourmet" snack chip, Zack's Mighty is flat-out a better product than Takis. Full stop. I even did a side-by-side taste test (just like my comparison of Takis en Fuego and Blue Heat), so I can directly compare the two. Here's why Zack's Mighty is better: The corn flavor.

Takis uses processed corn flour, while Zack's Mighty lists a combination of yellow and white corn in its ingredients. The quality of corn used by Zack's Mighty means it is more flavorful, and I don't need the website or the ingredients list to tell me that. You can taste it. These taste like actual corn tortilla chips rolled into a cylinder. Going back and forth from Takis to Zack's Mighty, I realized that Takis don't really pack a strong corn flavor at all. They're uber-processed, which is good and all, but leaves room for improvement. Zack's Mighty, by comparison, delivers a restaurant-quality tortilla chip. It's beautiful, maybe even a tad [gulp] artisanal, but it just works, man. The flavor is undeniable.

And the seasonings are spot-on, too. The chile lime flavor is magnificent, and you'll definitely find that these are the most reminiscent of actual Takis: spicy, tangy, and full of bite. Zack's Mighty is available at Whole Foods, so you won't be finding any food dyes or MSG in these products (bummer). Zack instead uses beet powder to achieve color. As for flavor, a combination of sea salt, citric acid, garlic powder, onion powder, vinegar, chile pepper, black pepper, and lime juice does the trick.

The Zack's Mighty Fiery Nacho flavor is essentially a spicy, cheddar-cheese-flavored bag of Takis. They're super cheesy and pack a wallop of heat, but they taste a lot more "natural" than Takis. The ingredients rock: green bell pepper, tomato powder, cane sugar, onion powder, garlic powder, organic cheddar cheese, and buttermilk powder, among other things (it still takes like 30 ingredients to make chips even if they're "natural"). These are all ingredients you want to see on a snack label—it's just good flavor construction. Sweetness, spice, tanginess, and cheese. This chip has it all.

Missing from Zack's Mighty are most of the foodstuffs and additives you see in Takis. No hydrolyzed soy protein, sodium bicarbonate, disodium inosinate, and guanylate, or sodium acetate.

Though many Whole Foods-esque products come off pretentious and preachy, Zack's Mighty seems like a brand that is simply seeking to make thoughtful and flavorful foods. By doing so, the brand has upstaged Takis. Maybe you don't like that Zack's chips are "bougie," or that they omit MSG. Maybe this reads too much like a "healthy snack." I certainly understand those arguments, and I had my preconceived notions, but all that goes out the window when the product just tastes superior. Zack's Mighty, and its commitment to quality, is a huge win for the future of snacks.