lays chips
Chicken & Waffles, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Sriracha flavors. Tumblr

Three new flavors of Lay’s potato chips are competing to see which will remain on store shelves for consumers to enjoy.

The "Do Us a Flavor" contest officially starts Tuesday, but many retailers have already begun rolling out the three test flavors, Chicken & Waffles, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Sriracha.

"We started shipping them," the chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay, Ann Mukherjee, told the Huffington Post. “I think some of our retailers got excited and put it out on the floor earlier."

According to the Huffington Post, a panel of chefs and flavor experts narrowed down 3.8 million submissions to about 20 flavors to prototype. From those, three finalists were selected to go to market for potato chip enthusiasts to pick a winner that will remain on store shelves.

People can vote for their favorite flavor through Lay's Facebook page, by texting "VOTE" to 24477 or through Twitter using the hashtags (hash)SaveChickenWaffles, (hash)SaveGarlicBread or (hash)SaveSriracha.

Mukherjee said many fans have already locked in on their favorites, sharing photos of their potato chip bags on social networks such as Instagram and Twitter.

The contest will run through May, when a winner will be selected, and its creator will receive a grand prize of $1 million, or 1 percent of the chip's 2013 sales, whichever is more; the runners-up will win $50,000.

According to Mukherjee, while the chip manufacturer intends to select on flavor, if two flavors are tied, both may be kept on store shelves.

The company tends to introduce one new flavor every year; last year’s flavor was Lay's Classic BLT, made to taste like a BLT sandwich.

The current campaign is the first time in Lay's 75-year history that U.S. consumers have had a say in choosing a flavor.