Shop our Crackers Range Online
Valley Produce Company makes most of what is on this page, and it makes a genuinely different cracker for each job. Crackerthins are the thin, quiet base that lets a strong cheese speak. Valley Seed Crisps are dense with seeds and fruit, built to hold blue cheese without collapsing. Artisan flatbreads and pita are wider and sturdier, so they suit dips and pate.
Buy across the range rather than deep into one line. A grazing board reads better with two textures and two shapes than with a single cracker stacked twice as high, and mixed boxes mean nothing goes soft in the pantry.
Match the cracker to what is going on top
Soft, fresh and washed-rind cheese
Anything wet needs a base that stays crisp and does not compete. Crackerthins Plain and Crackerthins Rosemary do that, as does the Sea Salt and Sesame artisan flatbread. Keep the flavoured crackers away from a good brie: the cheese is the point.
Cheddar, aged gouda and hard cheese
Here you can push back. Crackerthins Parmesan Cheese and Cracked Black Pepper both stand up to an aged cheddar, and Valley Seed Crisps in Quince and Almond bring the fruit note that a hard cheese usually needs from a chutney.
Blue cheese
Blue wants sweetness and structure at once. The Valley Seed Crisps range is built for it: Rosemary, Raisin and Pecan, Cranberry and Hazelnut, and Fig and Olive. Add a Valley Produce Company fig and almond fruit pyramid alongside and the board needs very little else.
Dips, pate and grazing tables
Artisan pita in Olive Oil and Sea Salt or Rosemary, Parmesan and Garlic is thick enough to scoop without snapping off in the bowl. The artisan flatbreads come in beetroot, carrot, kale, cheese, and cheese, tomato and basil, which is the easiest way to get colour onto a platter without buying anything decorative. Bagel Toast in original or garlic and herb is the sturdiest option of the lot, and the one to use under anything heavy such as pate, rillettes or a thick hummus.
Keeping crackers crisp on the day
Thin crackers go soft long before they go stale, so the enemy is air and time rather than the calendar. Open one box at a time and leave the others sealed. Build the board no more than half an hour ahead if anything wet is going on it, and keep chutney, honey and olives in small bowls rather than spooned straight onto the crackers. If you are carrying a platter to someone else's house, take the crackers in the packet and assemble them when you arrive: nothing ruins a good seed crisp faster than a car boot and forty minutes under cling film.
Crackers with Australian flavours
Valley Produce Company's Native Artisan Crackers use Kakadu plum and basil, wattleseed and fig, and saltbush and cranberry. They are the crackers to reach for when you are feeding visitors from overseas or sending a board to someone homesick, and they pair well with Kangaroo Island olives and a sharp relish or chutney.
Gluten free crackers
Crackerthins come in three gluten free varieties, Original, Cracked Black Pepper and Rosemary, so a coeliac guest gets a real cracker rather than a rice cake apology. They sit alongside the rest of the gluten free range, including gluten free pure butter shortbread.
The crackers already inside our hampers
Valley Produce Company mini artisan crackers, in sea salt and in cheese, are one of the most-packed items across our gourmet hamper range, which is a reasonable endorsement of how well they travel. If you are building a board as a gift rather than for tonight, a food and wine hamper arrives with the crackers, olives and fruit paste already matched, hand-packed in a premium box with a gold ribbon.
Cracker questions
Which crackers work with blue cheese?
Seeded, fruited and firm. Rosemary, Raisin and Pecan or Cranberry and Hazelnut seed crisps carry the salt and the sweetness at the same time, and they will not snap under a wedge of stilton the way a thin cracker does.
What is the difference between crackerthins and seed crisps?
Crackerthins are wafer-thin, lightly seasoned and neutral, so they disappear behind the topping. Seed crisps are baked, sliced and packed with seeds, nuts and dried fruit, so they are a flavour in their own right and better eaten with something plain.
Do you have gluten free crackers?
Yes, three Crackerthins varieties are gluten free and clearly labelled as such on the pack, so you can put them on the same board without a second thought.
How many kinds of cracker should a board have?
Two or three, chosen for contrast rather than variety for its own sake. One thin and neutral, one seeded and sweet, and something scoopable if there is a dip. Anything beyond that tends to be eaten last and thrown out.