I never expected that the recent international situation in the Middle East would not only affect oil prices, chips, and shipping costs, but also snack packaging. Calbee, a major Japanese snack manufacturer, announced earlier that the packaging of 14 of its main products will be changed to black and white monochrome printing starting from late May, as if it has returned to the old era. As soon as the news came out, Japanese netizens said, “This looks like fake news.”
Calbee potato chip packaging changes to black and white! The oil issue in the Middle East has spread, and Japanese netizens laughed: They thought it was fictional news
Calbee notified retail and wholesale channels on May 8 that some of its products will gradually switch to simplified packaging in only black and white starting from shipment batches in late May. The 14 affected products are almost the entire brand’s signature lineup, including classics:
- Thin salt flavor (うすしおFlavour)
- French consommé (コンソメパンチ)
- Seaweed salt flavor (のりしお)
- Kappa shrimp crackers (かっぱえびせん)
- Breakfast cereal Fuguola (Fructus), etc.
The potato chip series is expected to switch to black and white packaging starting from batches shipped after May 25. Existing colored packaging products will be gradually replaced after the shipment/inventory is digested.
Therefore, it should gradually appear in the Japanese market starting in June. People who plan to travel to Japan in the future may wish to pay more attention. In addition, the packaging only changes the color, but the taste, capacity and price of the product itself will not change.
What’s more worth mentioning is that Calbee’s new potato chip flavor of “Sour Cream Flavor” originally planned to be launched in July was also affected by the Middle East and directly decided to cancel the launch.
The reason for this is that the recent sharp rise in crude oil prices has also made the supply of petrochemical raw materials such as naphtha (naphtha) unstable. Naphtha is a key raw material for manufacturing printing ink solvents and resins. When the supply of naphtha is tight, the ink industry’s raw material dispatch will immediately have problems.
Calbee said that in order to ensure that the products can continue to be shipped normally and avoid being out of stock because the packaging cannot be printed, they simply minimize the need for color printing and use black and white first.
What’s funny is that this piece of news was tagged “#fictionnews” and appeared on Japan’s
VTuber Star Street Comet (Hoshimachi Suisei) also wrote on the sub-account: “My sister told me that the packaging of potato chips was going to be black and white. I said, ‘Oh, that is fictional news, right? wwww’ and it turned out to be true.”
This way of spawning a minimalist style from the crisis has also made some Japanese netizens laugh and call it like the MUJI line or the design of premium snacks.
However, some people are very pessimistic. @migi2505 wrote: “Is it true that Calbee’s potato chips are going to be black and white? Will other products also change? It’s really shocking that supermarket products are gradually changing to black and white.”
Calbee has not given a timetable for how long this black-and-white packaging will last, whether it will be expanded to more products, or whether color will be restored early. It depends on the subsequent situation in the Middle East and the supply of raw materials.
As for Taiwan, Taiwan has not yet seen an agent or official statement on whether the Calbee products imported from Taiwan will change to black and white. It may be necessary to wait until June at the earliest to observe the actual local shipments in Japan before we can judge whether it will extend to overseas markets.
Source: KOCPC Chinese