The supermarket hash browns of New Zealand, ranked from worst to best

Our panel of 10 judges sorted the hash browns from the hash clowns.

It’s beautiful watching your child enter the world. They arrive blue and covered in a variety of goos. Then they take their first breath, and you can actually see life entering their body, flushing their skin pink and pushing their ribcage in and out. Their dark eyes crack open under the white light. They take in the world for the first time, with all its infinite tragedies and possibilities, and they do what anyone would under the circumstances; they open their mouths wide and scream.

But all that’s nothing compared to the feeling of crunching down on a good hash brown. Biting through crispy fried potato skin and into a pillowy julienned filling is one of life’s uniquely transcendent experiences. It’s notable how many of our Spinoff staff can recall specific, hash brown-infused peak moments in their lives. For me and several others, that mountaintop swims into view any time we bite into a McDonald’s hash brown. Alice Neville recalls chowing down on a veggie burger with a hash brown patty at her favourite London pub, drinking 1,000 beers and achieving a state of nirvana. “I have never been happier,” she says. 

Hash browns represent a sliver of hope. This is a world of cancer, climate change, Klara and the Sun’s feature film adaptation and oil wars, but it’s also a place where you can go to the supermarket, buy a packet of rectangular tubers and create yourself a meal fit for a prince. If you’re going to indulge in a homemade hash brown though, what’s your best option? That’s the question 10 Spinoff judges set out to answer one morning in late-October. 

A few notes on our method: we cooked every hash brown variety in an air fryer. Each one was tasted blind, with judges given no hint as to the product’s true identity. All of them were served unadorned, though one unnamed person called Toby Manhire insisted on adding tomato sauce to some of his bites. Hopefully that clears things up. Now onto the rankings, starting with the yellowest and worst.

6) Emma Jane's Hash Browns Patties

4.9/10

$9.20 for 20 from Woolworths ($7.19 per 1kg)

On the face of it, Emma Jane’s is a humble local brand. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Palmerston North, the company sells its hash browns in cardboard packaging that epitomises the humble spirit of Edmund Hillary, Richie McCaw or The Spinoff senior writer Hayden Donnell.

But alone among the brands we tested, Emma Jane’s sources its potatoes from offshore, shipping them in by the container load from Belgium. They seem to have suffered in the journey, with the product taking on a distinctive hue best described as radioactive yellow. These hash browns had our judges reaching for similes. Toby’s review was all of eight words long. “Tastes like left in the attic all summer,” he said. “Tastes like a chicken nugget in a bad way,” said Henry Oliver. “Tastes too like a potato from the ground if that can be possible?” wrote Sophie Albornett. 

The distaste was universal. Well, almost. “Tastes ‘dirty’ in a way I absolutely love,” said Calum Henderson in his 8/10 review. “Tasty,” said Isaiah Tour, while delivering Emma Jane a nine.

5) Pams Classic Hash Browns

5.4/10

$5.69 for 1kg from Pak‘nSave

You can say this for Pam’s classic hash browns; they’re cheap. Unfortunately you can’t say much else. Few of our judges erupted in disgust over the Pams classic. Few of them erupted in joy either. “Mushy. Forgettable. Jog on,” wrote Joel MacManus. “Too plain,” said Isaiah. Sophie, a self-described Pams Classic fan, correctly identified her favourite. But even she had to make a painful concession. “A little bland,” she said. “Hate to betray my loyal, but it’s not very good.” The most unconventional criticism once again came from Toby. “Aftertaste a bit Repco,” he scrawled.

4) Wattie’s Classic Hash Browns

6.1/10

$10.29 for 1.25kg from Pak ‘n Save ($8.23 per 1kg)

Wattie’s Classic is a New Zealand classic. Its distinctive red packet is probably the first one you think of when someone asks you to pick up some rectangular potatoes from the supermarket. But reputation counts for nothing when you enter the blood-tinged walls of The Spinoff’s blind testing gladiator pit, and our 10 judges deemed Wattie’s Classic merely good rather than great. 

Perhaps it was the potato consistency that lost it some marks. People just didn’t like that its hash felt mashed rather than julienned. “You don’t SPELL HASH WITH AN M,” wrote Toby, in one of his trademark semi-literate rants. “I want hash brown not mash brown!” echoed Alice.

There was some good news though. Judges praised Watties’ crispy coating. “Lovely crunch,” wrote Lyric Waiwiri-Smith, before unfairly blaming the comparatively subpar innards on a “Hayden cooking error”. Seeing as no-one actually reads the middle of these rankings, perhaps this is the opportune time for me to tell all my co-workers to 100% go fuck themselves I quit!!!!!!

3) McCain Hash Browns

6.2/10

$6.49 for 750g from Pak ‘n Save ($8.65 per 1kg)

Yum, according to some. Not me though. I personally believe McCain’s hash browns are a godless abomination filled with potatoes that taste like they’re constructed out of tractor parts.

But I defer to the panel, and they say these hash browns are really good. “Slightly too salty, which is the perfect amount of salt hungover on a Sunday morning,” said Robbie Nicol. “Tastes more real,” said Alice, before channelling the words of Tina Tiller, who was sadly absent from this judging panel due to everyone scoffing all the hash browns before she arrived. “YUMBOS.”

2) Pams Triangle Hash Browns

7.2/10

$3.99 for 750g from Pak ‘n Save ($5.32 per 1kg)

Maybe it’s the way the shape interacts with the air fryer. Maybe it’s the fact these triangular hashies contain slightly less potato, at 84%, than their four-sided father Pams Classic, at 88%.

Either way, a triangular Pams is a huge improvement on a rectangular one. Judges loved its outsides. “I like how golden it is,” said Lyric. “GREAT crisp,” said Sophie. “Like a tangible layer of crisp.”

The innards were more divisive. “Outstanding taste. If I had to guess: agria? Superb,” enthused Calum. Joel, however, disliked the “mushy interior”. So did Toby. “Fresh and flalay (sic). Potato a bit thin and fluff (sic),” he wrote, in what may go down as the nadir for the English language. Robbie put it more coherently. “Fluffy inside. Like a fast food hash brown – not a diner hash brown,” he said.

1) McCain’s AirFryer Hash Browns

7.3/10

$5.89 for 525g from Pak ‘n Save ($11.22 per 1kg)

Is it fair that a hash brown specifically designed for air frying wins a competition where all the hash browns are air fried? Did McCain’s create this product entirely to game The Spinoff’s ranking system? These are all questions I asked myself before saying screw it, these hash browns are simply too crispy, perfectly formed and indeed yumbos to leave off the top of our list. 

Our judges praised this hash brown’s crunchy outer skin and fluffy, cafe-quality interior. Many of them were notably astute in their critiques. Even without knowing this hash brown had been scientifically calibrated for air frying, Henry correctly identified it as “the best cooked so far”. Sophie recalled the colour code of a similar product and made a comparison. “Like if green was better,” she said. Correct. Green was in fact this product’s four-sided mother, McCain’s Classic.

There was one exception. Instead of delivering tasting notes or textural analysis, Toby smeared out a missive in his own faeces on his tense relationship with Alice’s dog. “Stanley thinks I’m going to give him some hash brown but I won’t bc he totally blanked me earlier,” he wrote. For what it’s worth, he gave this hash brown a seven.