This article has been updated with additional information.
ASHEVILLE – Each year, shoppers wait to see what media mogul Oprah Winfrey deems the perfect and hottest gifts of the holiday season.
Oprah’s Favorite Things has been revealed for 2025, with an Asheville craft food company’s gift box making the coveted list of more than 100 selected items.
“My hope is that these gifts will help you celebrate the people who light up your life — and maybe add a little sparkle to your own,” Winfrey wrote on the Oprah Daily website.
Oprah Winfrey showcases some of the products on her 2025 Favorite Things list.
The Gourmet Chip Company’s specialty custom trio gift box was named one of Oprah’s Favorite Things in the food category.
“Gayle and Adam discovered these flavor-packed, thick-cut chips on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina. Garden herb, truffle, and cheddar — they’ll all go great with a sandwich,” Winfrey was attributed to saying on the Oprah Daily website.
A worker inspects freshly cooked potato chips at The Gourmet Chip Company facility in Black Mountain on Nov. 6, 2025.
The specialty custom trio gift box, which includes 4-ounce bags, allows customers to choose their three flavors. Options include black truffle herb, Italiano Modena garden herb, smoked hops and cheddar, sour cream lemon Tandoori, and Pisgah wild herb.
The gift box costs $32, and it is available for nationwide shipping. Or purchase at the chip company’s café and retail store at 43 1/2 Broadway St. downtown.
The Gourmet Chip Company’s retail line and café
Neala Steury, founder and owner of The Gourmet Chip Company, said she’d long been a fan of savory snacks over sweet treats, and was inspired to launch the company while living in Los Angeles.
Three years later, in 2011, as a new resident of Asheville, she recognized the potential for introducing the brand to the city, as it had a reputation and market for unique craft food.
The Gourmet Chip Company specializes in thick-cut chips with a lower oil content than many other brands. Steury said the process to make them is significant to the result, and that the flavors take them to the next level.
The Gourmet Chip Company, founded in Asheville, is one of the featured items on the 2025 Oprah’s Favorite Things holiday gift list.
“I pull on culinary inspiration from around the world. I spend a lot of time developing flavors, personally, to make them gourmet and more of a culinary experience,” she said.
Products are made with real herbs and spices, as well as ingredients like infused truffle oil.
Neala Steury, founder and owner of The Gourmet Chip Company, stands inside her facility in Black Mountain on Nov. 6, 2025. The company’s specialty custom trio gift box — featuring flavors like black truffle herb, Italiano Modena garden herb, and smoked hops and cheddar — was named one of Oprah’s Favorite Things for 2025.
The demand for packaged chips at Steury’s café, which offers a menu of signature paninis, motivated the retail line.
Steury said it was perfect timing for the company to be featured in the holiday shopping guide, as it had expanded into a manufacturing facility in Black Mountain in October, which would enable the team to handle the high demand expected to follow the list’s release.
“It’s a blessing and an honor. It will let us hit the ground running with full production. It’s exciting,” Steury said.
Recently, The Gourmet Chip Company signed a 21-store distribution deal with The Fresh Market.
More: Oprah’s Favorite Things list includes picks from Duchess Meghan, more – Exclusive
Oprah Daily’s Asheville explorations, other favorite things
Last summer, Gayle King and Adam Glassman visited Asheville for an Oprah Daily special feature titled “Gayle King and Adam Glassman Discover the Hidden Charms of Asheville,” which was published online in July.
It was a part of an editorial partnership between Explore Asheville and Oprah Daily, during which the tourism group presented a selection of local products and makers representing the talent and creativity in the city for King and Glassman to consider spotlighting.
Neala Steury, founder and owner of The Gourmet Chip Company, stands inside her facility in Black Mountain on Nov. 6, 2025. The company’s specialty custom trio gift box — featuring flavors like black truffle herb, Italiano Modena garden herb, and smoked hops and cheddar — was named one of Oprah’s Favorite Things for 2025.
Steury said the private tour guide offered King and Glassman bags of the gourmet chips, and they took samples to Winfrey.
According to the article, King and Glassman’s post-Tropical Storm Helene trip included visits to Biltmore Estate, the North Asheville Tailgate Market, the North Carolina Arboretum, East Fork Pottery and the North Carolina Glass Center.
King discussed her “wedding crashing” at a couple’s wedding at The Omni Grove Park Inn on CBS Mornings, on which she co-hosts.
King and Glassman also stopped by previous Oprah’s Favorite Things businesses, including the French Broad Chocolate Lounge.
In 2024, French Broad Chocolates’ Classic Hot Chocolate Collection, featuring three 8.4-oz. canisters, made the famed list.
French Broad Chocolate’s classic hot chocolate trio was chosen for Oprah’s Favorite Things holiday guide for 2024.
In 2019, Spicewalla’s 18-tin “essentials” spice set was featured on Winfrey’s list. King and Glassman visited Botiwalla, one of the restaurants under the Asheville-based Chai Pani Restaurant Group banner.
One of the flavors in Winfrey’s Gourmet Chip Company’s custom trio set was the Italiano Modena garden herb, from the chip company’s new specialty gift sets, in collaboration with Spicewalla.
“The Spicewalla trio is unbelievable, I’m very proud of it,” Steury said. “It’s all been strangely beautiful and a blessing to have that coalesce as it did.”
View the complete Oprah’s Favorite Things holiday gift list at oprahdaily.com.
The Gourmet Chip Company
Where: 43 1/2 Broadway St., downtown Asheville.
Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.
Info: For more about The Gourmet Chip Company, visit gourmetchipcompany.com.
Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Tips, comments, questions? Email tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow @PrincessOfPage on Instagram. Sign up for AVL Bites and Brews, our weekly food and drink newsletter here.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville’s Gourmet Chip Company makes Oprah’s Favorite Things guide
