The snack giant had argued that that its Sensations Poppadoms were not crisps and should not attract sales tax.

Under the tax rules, food on a list including ice cream and and cereal bars, are subject to 20 per cent VAT.

Traditional poppadoms enjoy an exemption as they are a restaurant food as opposed to a packaged snack.

Walkers said its mini poppadoms were not crisps because they were not made from potato and had to be prepared before consumption as they were designed for dipping in sauces or eating with a curry.

A tax tribunal, however, found that the “small, generally round, bitesized objects” which are “somewhat wavy, with small bubbles on the surface” were crisps as 40 per cent of the ingredients were “potato-derived”.

The tribunal judges Anne Fairpo and Sonia Gable stated: “Nominative determinism is not a characteristic of snack foods: calling a snack food Hula Hoops does not mean that one could twirl that product around one’s midriff, nor is Monster Munch generally reserved as a food for monsters.”

Nor were the judges convinced that the mini poppadoms were used like traditional ones.

“In practice, we did not consider that they were significantly different to potato crisps with regard to their ability to convey dips, etc, particularly given that we consider there is a practical limit to the amount of dip or chutney most people are likely to want to combine with the crunch of the conveyor product.

“They are packaged and sold in a manner similar to potato crisps. Removing them from their packaging, we consider that their appearance and texture is similar to potato crisps.”