For decades, lard and beef tallow were ingredients food companies quietly moved away from. Now they’re on the front of the bag.
A funny thing has happened since we first started watching this trend over 18 months ago: beef tallow has gone from an interesting trend to an actual category.
MASA fries its tortilla chips in grass-fed beef tallow. Its sister brand Vandy does the same with potato chips and has now moved into frozen steak fries. Snake River Farms makes kettle chips with American Wagyu beef tallow. Fatworks sells leaf lard, duck fat, and tallow. EPIC, owned by General Mills, still has beef tallow sitting comfortably inside a major CPG portfolio.
Then there are Tasty Nate’s, Teddy’s, Beefy’s Own, Norse Roots, Fat of the Land, Rosie’s, Rancher’s Chips, Tortallo, Tallow & Stone and plenty more.
But the most telling new entrant is Boulder Canyon.
The Utz-owned chip brand launched a kettle chip cooked in beef tallow this year. That matters because this isn’t a startup created around the seed-oil backlash. It is an established national snack company deciding the opportunity is now big enough to deserve shelf space.
Whole Foods had already named “Tallow Takeover” its top food trend for 2026. By November, that prediction looks less like trend forecasting and more like a description of what happened.
Animal fat is back because it lands in a very good place right now: it tastes good, it performs well and it fits neatly into the consumer preference for ingredients that feel familiar and less industrial.
The problem is that everyone has noticed.
First, lard and tallow are not the same thing
They tend to get lumped together, but they come from different animals and do different jobs.
Lard is rendered pork fat. Leaf lard, taken from around the kidneys, is particularly prized because it is mild and exceptionally good at making pastry tender and flaky.
Tallow usually means rendered beef fat. It is firmer, more savory and especially useful for high-heat frying.
That distinction explains why the current snack boom is mostly about beef tallow.
Lard has a long history in pie crusts, biscuits, tortillas, tamales, refried beans, carnitas and fried doughs. Its superpower is texture.
Tallow’s superpower is frying.
That makes it an easy fit for french fries, potato chips and tortilla chips, where consumers can actually taste and feel the difference.
The best argument for tallow is flavor
A lot of the current conversation begins with seed oils, but the strongest reason to use beef tallow is that it can make a potato chip taste really good.
Tallow adds a deeper, savory note that neutral vegetable oils don’t. It also produces the kind of crisp, substantial texture that works particularly well with potatoes. But how to differentiate?
Snake River Farms is a good example. Its chips are made with Idaho potatoes, American Wagyu beef tallow and Rocky Mountain salt. Note that each has provenance, hence premium differentiation.
The Wagyu part is interesting, but not because it somehow turns a potato chip into health food. Snake River Farms already owns the beef story, so using its Wagyu tallow in a snack feels like a natural extension rather than an ingredient added because the internet likes it. But Beef tallow is becoming common enough that the next question is going to be: whose tallow? Grass-fed. Regenerative. Local. Wagyu. A particular farm. A particular region.
Once an ingredient becomes a trend, specificity is what makes it premium and better differentiated.
There is a real performance story here too
Tallow isn’t simply there to make the label look different, it performs well at frying temperatures, gives fried foods a firm, crisp exterior, and adds richness without requiring much else.
Boulder Canyon is making essentially the same sensory argument at a much bigger scale: rich savory taste and a bigger crunch.
Restaurants are paying attention for the same reason. Nation’s Restaurant News recently devoted an industry session to what operators are seeing from tallow in flavor, texture, fry life and kitchen performance, rather than simply its social-media appeal.
Lard has its own functional advantage. In pastry and dough, it creates tenderness and flakiness that are difficult to duplicate with many other fats. That opens a much bigger product-development conversation than potato chips.
Tallow now appears in tortilla chips, potato chips, frozen fries, tots and even veggie straws. Norse Roots expanded beyond its original potato chips this year with beef-tallow tortilla chips and ranch-flavored veggie straws, while adding distribution through select Albertsons and Hy-Vee stores.
Vandy made an even bigger jump in October, moving from the snack aisle into frozen foods with Classic Steak Fries made from organic potatoes and grass-fed beef tallow.
Steak ’n Shake has taken the idea from restaurants into retail too, introducing beef-tallow frozen fries and tots along with packaged tallow.
Tallow is no longer a chip trend. It is becoming a performance platform ingredient.
The better-for-you story is more complicated
The other big reason consumers are paying attention is health perception.
Tallow and lard feel traditional, recognizable, and less industrial than refined seed oils. Brands reinforce that impression with short ingredient lists, grass-fed sourcing and very prominent “no seed oils” messaging.
Nation’s Restaurant News reports that sales of products made with beef tallow reached $1.1 billion in the 52 weeks ending March 2026, up 275 percent over three years. Foodservice suppliers are seeing growth too: WebstaurantStore reported tallow sales dollars up 50 percent year to date, with volume up 33 percent. Those are no longer curiosity numbers.
But perceived health and demonstrated health are not the same thing. Animal fats tend to be higher in saturated fat than many vegetable oils, and the scientific debate has not suddenly disappeared because tallow has better branding.
“Three ingredients you recognize” is a clear proposition.
“Cooked in grass-fed beef tallow” is a clear proposition.
“This is healthier because it contains tallow” is much harder to defend but a potato chip fried in beef tallow is still a potato chip.
The strongest case for buying it may be pleasure, quality, performance, and ingredients you understand rather than pretending it belongs next to the kale.
Then the government poured gasoline on the conversation
In January, the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans put beef tallow squarely into the national food conversation, naming it as a cooking-fat option alongside butter while continuing to recommend limiting saturated fat. The tension was obvious enough that The New York Times described tallow as a former “health pariah” suddenly elevated by federal policy.
From a marketing standpoint, the effect is straightforward. An ingredient food companies once treated as something to hide is now part of a national conversation about traditional food. That is an enormous amount of free cultural momentum.
However, tallow now carries associations with RFK Jr., MAHA, and the larger argument over seed oils and processed foods. That may bring consumers to the category quickly, but it can push others away just as quickly.
In our opinion, building an entire brand around the politics of fat feels like a short runway; building it around a genuinely delicious product is a much better bet.
MASA is showing us what scale looks like
When we first looked at this market, MASA was the clearest proof that tallow could support a modern premium snack brand.
Now it is showing whether that proposition can scale. Ancient Crunch says MASA and Vandy are now sold in more than 3,000 locations. Whole Foods expanded the brands from an initial 93-store test to chainwide distribution this summer. MASA also expanded into 326 Target stores and, in November, entered 55 Costco warehouses in Washington and Oregon. The company says it is now producing more than 400,000 bags a month.
Costco is particularly significant. Natural grocery is where you would expect tallow to work. Club is different. The pack is bigger, the value equation matters more, and the volume requirements are serious. If MASA succeeds there, tallow has crossed another line.
And Ancient Crunch isn’t stopping with tortilla and potato chips. Vandy’s move into frozen fries suggests the company sees “traditional fat” as a platform capable of moving across the store. That may ultimately be a more important story than the success of any single chip.
Yesterday’s by-product is finding new value
There is another side to this that has received less attention: the supply chain.
Coast Packing has been selling lard and tallow for more than a century. CEO Eric Gustafson recently told The Food Institute that renewed interest in traditional fats is creating fresh demand for products the industry has been making all along. This isn’t a newly invented ingredient system. It is an existing one whose perceived value has changed.
Animal fat has always been part of meat production. What has changed is the willingness to put it into a premium package and charge accordingly.
There is a sensible resource-efficiency argument here too. More edible fat can remain in the food system instead of moving into lower-value applications. But brands should resist turning that into a blanket sustainability claim. A by-product is not automatically sustainable. How the animal was raised, how the fat was processed and what would otherwise have happened to it all matter.
Still, taking something consumers once rejected and turning it into a premium ingredient is a fascinating reversal.
Ireland could be especially interesting
No Irish tallow-fried crisp appears to have launched publicly yet, but we know at least one established Irish snack company is actively developing one. And the proposition almost writes itself. Irish potatoes. Irish grass-fed beef tallow. Sea salt. Unlike some of the American brands, it doesn’t need an elaborate wellness story to make sense.
Ireland already has enormous equity in both beef and potatoes. Put the two together and the product feels connected to place rather than attached to a trend. That may be a clue to where this goes next.
The strongest animal-fat products will be the ones where the ingredient belongs there.
“Seed oil free” now table stakes
The category’s success is already creating its next problem. Look at enough of these products and they begin to sound remarkably similar.
Potatoes.
Beef tallow.
Salt.
Grass-fed.
No seed oils.
For an emerging category, that is compelling. For a crowded category, it is not much of a brand strategy.
The arrival of Boulder Canyon makes this even more apparent. When a company the size of Utz can put “Cooked in Beef Tallow” on the front of a Boulder Canyon bag, small brands no longer own the ingredient story.
And the category is already moving into flavor extensions and different forms. Norse Roots has tortilla chips and veggie straws. Teddy’s has multiple flavors. Vandy has frozen fries. Steak ’n Shake has fries and tots.
The next wave is not going to win merely by replacing sunflower oil with beef fat. Which brings us back to the question that follows almost every fast-moving food trend: What do you have when everybody else catches up?
MASA has its corn, traditional processing and brand world.
Snake River Farms owns Wagyu provenance.
Boulder Canyon has national scale.
An Irish producer can own place.
Others will have to find their own reason for existing. Because tallow may get someone to pick up the bag once. It won’t necessarily get them to buy it again and create loyalty.
What we’re watching now
Six months ago, we were watching to see whether beef tallow could escape the wellness niche. It has.
The more interesting question now is whether it becomes a durable food platform or turns into another ingredient badge that eventually loses its power.
The evidence for staying power is better than it was even a few months ago. Whole Foods put it at the top of its trend list. Major retailers have given it national shelf space. Costco is testing it at club scale. Utz has entered the market. Frozen foods are arriving. Foodservice demand continues to grow.
But none of that changes the basic rule. The ingredient still has to make the product better. Flavor gets the first bite. Performance gives the fat a reason to be there. Provenance gives the brand something to own.
“Made with beef tallow” got this new category started. It probably won’t be enough to win it.
