Curry flavored potato chips is launched in Toronto and Vancouver to capture South Asian consumer market. (Photo, Gloria Suhasini)

TORONTO : Frito Lay Canada has launched a new line of potato chips inspired by the country's large South Asian community.

The snacks company created and tested roughly 40 different chip flavors including seaweed, cucumber and green tea before choosing spicy curry. Wasabi was the only other flavor chosen for test marketing.

Bags of potato chips with these two flavors to hit grocery store shelves in Toronto and Vancouver by end of February. The company was trying to address the preferences of the ethnic groups. Canada's biggest snack company and a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Frito Lay needed to strike a balance between authentic Asian flavors and the taste comfort levels of Canadians, according to vice president of brand marketing Dale Hooper. '[In Asia] they have a plethora of different snacking options -- nuts, meats, those kind of things are much bigger from an Asian perspective. So the challenge for us was to find the perfect intersection between the flavors and tastes they like and something Western, which is the potato chip,' Hooper was quoted by Globe and Mail.According to Statistics Canada, 6.6 percent of Canada's population who are of Asian and South Asian descent, half of the total visible minority population (13.4 percent).

Frito Lay hopes to take these two products national, depending on their success among Toronto and Vancouver consumers, both ethnic and mainstream.