Potato Chips in Japan

Talking about potato chips in Japan, the most well known maker is Calbee. Here is their official site and this is their potato chips page. The most standard flavor would be "salt base" all over the world. As far as I remember, we had just "salt flavor" before, but now Calbee has only "light salt”(usu-shio). I checked the U.S pringles site and I have found that they don’t have "light salt". On the other hand, Japanese pringles makes only "light salt" as the Japanese special. hmm maybe Japanese like "light salt" and dislike regular salt. The second most popular chips in Japan would be "consomme". Actually my friend likes this "consomme garlic" very much and always has it in his desk.

These two would be okay, but I wonder if some other flavors would be different from foreign countries. For example in Japan Aonori is a very popular flavor for chips, aonori is green laver and is a type of edible green seaweed. if you tried eating Okonomi-yaki or Tako-yaki before you know that it is the small green topping. Calbee has two kinds of aonori chips, "Aonori-salt" and "Double Aonori- nori nori" chips. Do you want to try? after eating, please check in the mirror, some aonori will be stuck in your teeth.

I wrote about Umami in this Ajinomoto post. yes! we love the taste of of dried-bonito flakes, dried kelp with soy sauce. So they are "kombu soy sauce" chips and "butter soy sauce" chips. as a local edition, they made "Kansai (west japan) soy sauce" chips, "Kyushu (south Japan) soy sauce" chips which showcase the differences in soy sauces. Now they have special chips for a limited time only that showcase famous salts. This is "Okinawa special salt" chips, and this is "Nagasaki special salt" chips. yeah, every snack in Japan seems to have a local edition now :-). For hot pepper lovers, there are "kimchi flavor" as Korean, "spicy BBQ" as American and of course as Japanese Shichimi Togarashi is here and Jyako Mentaiko(hot and spicy cod egg paste) is here.

I suppose they don't sound too delicious for foreign people he he he. and as far as I saw on this popular chips ranking (2003 ranking, but i don't think it has changed much), regular salt or consomme overwhelmingly have good sales in Japan too.

The popular Chips ranking 2003
1. Koikeya Consomme.
2. Calbee Hard fried Potato light salt.
3. Koikeya Nori salt.
4. Calbee A la Potato light salt.
5. Calbee Consomme Punch.
6. Calbee Pizza Potato.
7. Koikeya light salt.
8. Calbee A la Potato mild butter. 9. Meiji Butter Soy sauce : Out of sale.
10. Calbee Hot Chili pepper : Out of sale.

By the way, in the Calbee site this hard potato chips TV ad and this vegetable snack TV AD are silly. Three carnivores find out that what they are eating is a vegetarian snack.

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Comments

[Porgus]

I am a porgus

[Mari]

Hi there
Hmm I agree. Japanese food, especialy sweets and snacked changed very often. Now we have winter and autumn versions. I found sweet potato flavor pretz in market.

[Wan Hazmer]

Yup Japanese snacks change often. That's what I like about Japan, change is part of the culture. A culture that is so "in" might be "out" the next month!

Ahhh Ajinamoto... in Malaysia, that is quite a brand. I don't really care about its harmful effects, but the older folks say that if you add ajinomoto powder to the food you eat, you will become bald fast... haha I wonder how true that is...

[AzianBrewer]

I do agreed that American chips are boring but we are improving! The Old Bay Chips from Herr's is great. Lays/Ruffles are introducing their higher end chips using better potatoes.

[Johan]

The great thing about chips (and other snacks) in Japan is that, apart from a base selection of "standard" chips (like usu-shio etc.) the selection rapidly changes. So every few months you get a whole new line of interesting chips to try out! Some great, some far from great!!

[cecile]

two weeks ago, i was craving for salty chips so i went to the nearby combini to pick up some snacks. i got some calbee and was so shocked when i got home because they weren't salty for me. judging from my friends, japanese people are really into lighter, more delicate taste compared to other countries.

[Jenn]

It's interesting that Asia and America have completely different potato chip flavors. The only "American" flavor I could find in Japan was "sour cream and onion" Pringles.

American chips are boring... we have plain (salty), ranch, sour cream and onion, barbeque, and salt & vinegar... sometimes cheese flavors appear. I wish we had more choices like Japan.

In the past year we've had a few more interesting flavors... dill pickle, guacamole, and Ruffles' The Works. But they're usually only available for a short time.

[Thomas]

Some of those types of chips are definitely quite a bit different than what I would find in the local store but I'd be willing to give them a try at least once. My snack tastes are probably too well defined for me to really switch what I enjoy but it doesn't hurt to try new things. Personally I like spicy chips flavored with jalapeno or habanero peppers.

Not that any potato chips are really healthy but I try to always get baked or kettle cooked chips. They have less fat and they are crunchier which I like. :)