Both Cheese Balls and Puffs are tasty cheesy snacks that are always welcome and certainly have a place in any respectable snack stash. While certainly similar, Cheese Balls have a few distinct characteristics that put them ahead of Cheetos Puffs in my bowl.
For one, while Puffs and Balls are equally airy during the first bite, Cheese Balls maintain their delightful crunch throughout the chewing process. The Puffs, on the other hand, immediately melt and stick to anything and everything. They mercilessly cake to every nook and cranny your mouth has to offer. It would be a lie to say that Cheese Balls don’t also stick to the grooves in your molars, but it takes about 20 Balls before the caking becomes noticeable — by noticeable I mean, you have to slow the steady stream of crunchy cheesy goodness for a second to pick out the bit caught in your voracious mouth grinders. For someone with deep grooves like myself — my dentist said so — this actually affects the cheese snack experience quite a bit. It also makes for significantly easier post-snacking mouth clean up. This also means Cheese Balls may be the less likely to give you cavities of the two!* Cheese Puffs also have a tendency to cover your fingers in a thick plaster of cheese dust. Don’t get me wrong, I love licking my fingers after a good snack, but I don’t want to have to do it after two or three cheesy morsels. I find that UTZ Cheese Balls have an appropriate of cheese dust to snack unit ratio. They do leave cheesy residue, but it is not until you are well into a barrel — which I will get into later — that you’re if forced to scrape it off your fingers with the back of your teeth whereas this is nearly a puffly occurrence with the Puffs. With UTZ Cheese Balls you can still have the pleasure licking cheese dust off your fingers without it hindering to your snacking.
Most importantly, I think Cheese balls win the flavor battle. Despite having less sodium per serving that Cheetos Puffs (260mg vs 300mg per 1oz ), UTZ Cheese Balls taste saltier and cheesier. I think this is due to the use of actual cheese by UTZ rather than the cheese seasoning used in the Cheetos. I don’t think ingredients are something that should be considered too heavily because the two products are extremely similar in this regard. They are equally healthy/unhealthy. I mention this one discrepancy in ingredients because it explains the difference in flavor I noticed.
Ergonomically Cheese Balls are also superior. It is very easy to pop a marble sized snack into your mouth without getting cheese dust all over your face. The pool noodle shape of the Puff makes it much harder to fit it into one’s mouth; leaving biting as the only consumption option. Because of the messy nature I mentioned earlier, this makes for embarrassing cheese dust on your front teeth and face. The shape and size of Cheese Balls also makes them a very fun snack. You can throw one across a room into your buddy’s mouth fairly accurately — they are a little light, so significant distance may bring some issues. The Puff on the other hand, is hard to throw accurately because of it’s shape (you’d probably have to throw it like you would a frisbee/boomerang) and even if it hits its target its pool noodle shape makes it near impossible to catch in a mouth. Puffs may be preferred by families hosting sleepovers with particularly rowdy kids because they avoid most urges to throw and catch food, however for most other situations, having a snack that doubles as a game is the best way to go.
Now for the packaging. I really think that UTZ understands what its snack is about. There is s no veneer of class or sophistication when it comes to UTZ Cheese Balls. They recognize that Cheese Balls are an unrefined party snack for the masses. This recognition is evident in their packaging; Cheese Balls come in two sizes, a small individual bag and a MASSIVE 23 oz tub. I am a (metaphorically) big fan of the tubs, but they certainly come with the danger and temptation of eating a whole tub in one sitting. I did that once and discovered a drawback to Cheese Balls: if you eat too many they scrape the roof of your mouth and it will be tender for a couple days. I don’t think this would happen with Puffs because 1. you would stop before it could even get to this point due to overwhelming tooth and finger caking and 2. the texture of Puffs after a chew or two may avoid that complication altogether. Keep in mind, however, that is does take A LOT of Cheese Balls for this to happen and, unless you are prone to snack binging, it shouldn’t have a strong impact in your snacking choice. The sizing that UTZ uses is a method of 2nd degree price discrimination. More specifically, quantity discounts — smaller packaging is cheaper over all, more convenient for individuals, but more expensive per unit; large packaging is cheaper per unit, but is usually only considered by people who actually need Cheese Balls in bulk. By creating two sizes, they hope buyers will self select and pick the size that is right for them. Selling Cheese Balls at 2 different prices allows them to divide the market into bulk and individual buyers and subsequently capture more of the consumer surplus for themselves.
Unlike UTZ, Cheetos Puffs does try to create a ‘higher class’ puff with their dressed up White Cheddar puffs. They have entirely new packaging and they are priced a bit higher when they are essentially the same product. Thats called versioning! Versioning is a twist on 2nd degree price discrimination. Basically by dressing up the packaging and branding the White Cheddar Puffs seem like a premium product when White Cheddar and regular Puffs are basically the same in costs and process to make. This has a similar result as UTZs quantity discounts, but through a different approach. UTZ does have a white cheddar version of Cheese Balls, but they are called Snow Balls and are sold in essentially the same packaging with no effort to make them seem better or classier than standard Cheese Balls.
I find UTZ Cheese Balls to be largely superior to Cheetos Puffs. I do also enjoy puffs, but if given the choice, I would choose UTZ Cheese Balls every time. I like UTZ’s recognition of the lack of sophistication of their snack and find Cheese Balls a generally more satisfying and enjoyable snack.
Now you can better understand why I look so genuinely happy in this photo.
*admittedly unsubstantiated claim
