Saturday, August 28, 2010

Random Weekend Picture 27

Small (about .5 oz./14 grams) bags of potato chips, potato snacks, vegetable snacks, and ramen snacks sold in long perforated strings.

A few weeks back, Marvo from the Impulsive Buy mentioned in comments that salted snack bag sizes in Japan are usually big, and the fact that he hadn't seen any individual serving size bags of things like potato chips from Japan. By and large, this is true. In the U.S., you find small 1 oz. bags which are designed to be thrown in a lunch bag. Since the Japanese don't have chips and sandwiches for lunch, you don't find those types of bags for sale very often.

Various snacks in small bags, again, in long strings with perforations. From left: shrimp salted snacks, Calpis marshmallows, Doraemon candies (can't see the type), Anpanman fruit candies, caramel corn, Meiji's nature themed cookies (shaped like trees, mushrooms, etc.) in various flavors, gummi candies, fruit-flavored pressed powder pellet type candies (like Sweetarts).

What you do find on occasion are these long strings of perforated bags designed for children to snack on. They are smaller than the standard 1 oz. bags that you find back home, usually containing about half the volume of a standard snack size bag in the U.S. Sometimes these strings are all of the same type of snack and sometimes they are variations on a main theme.

I don't tend to buy these because I really don't need 4 or 5 little bags of the same snack, but they are handy if you want to sample a lot of different things in small quantities. I just haven't run across a sampler string that really appeals to me.

4 comments:

ebidebby said...

I like to buy the strips of Tirol Chocolates, but that's the only way Tirol is usually available in Japanese import grocers in North America. It does seem a bit wasteful, though, since each piece is already wrapped so they don't really need their own individual bags...but Japanese packaging is rarely designed for efficiency.

Noriko said...

These type of snacks started being sold for Children... But, i can see more various types even for Adults. And, the smaller package show up. Today, even Japanese people need for a healthy diet, not to eat too much etc. Small package is good to prevent from eating too much snacks. You know, difficult to stop eating once it's opened up.

Orchid64 said...

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to comment!

ebidebby: I hate those Tirol strip things! One good and interesting flavor and a bunch of old or rather boring ones! It is incredibly wasteful. It's like individually wrapped and then wrapped *again*. I think they do it because it is appealing to kids rather than for any useful purpose. The small variety bags are the same Tirol chocolates only without the separate plastic packs for each candy.

Noriko: I had noticed that there are more with what appear to be "adult" package designs, and figured they were scaling portion sizes for everyone. Most of them though, still appear to be "kiddy" oriented, particularly among the candies. And you are absolutely right that the small packages are great for portion control! It's one of the things I love about snacks in Japan!

tracylee said...

This reminds me of the shampoo and conditioner that was sold in Ecuador in single-use packages on long strips. However, you were able to buy just as many as you needed. Perfect for a weekend away from home.