Where Do They Get The Names?

Fellow blogger, Aviva Bowman, asked how do they (Japanese food/candy companies) come up with those strange flavor combinations when they adapt Western recipes/snacks for their markets. I'm like her; some work, others don't.

It's chocolate. It's crunchy... It's CRUNKY?



I thought CRUNKY would have the taste and feel of CRUNCH, but it misses the mark big time. Perhaps it's the percentage of cocoa or the way the "crispies" were made. I assume the candy was made the way it is so that it can survive tropical shipping. An American bar would melt a lot faster, in my opinion. On the pallete, CRUNKY has an almost plastic feel on the tongue, like the residue those wax-lip candies leave behind after you chew on them for awhile.

The parent company LOTTE is huge!

Lotte Group is a large South Korea-Japan chaebol (conglomerate). LOTTE Co., Ltd. was established in June 1948 in Tokyo, Japan by a Korean businessman, Shin Kyuk-Ho (신격호) also known as Shigemitsu Takeo (重光 武雄).

Lotte Group consists of over 50 business units employing 38,000 people engaged in such diverse industries as candy manufacturing, beverages, hotels, fast food, retail, financial services, heavy chemicals, electronics, IT, construction, publishing, and entertainment. Today, Lotte is South Korea's 5th largest conglomerate. Lotte has major operations in South Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, USA, and Russia and continues to expand. (Wikipedia)

I would like to submit my name for the position of: Official Candy Name Thinker-Upper. (I'd like to have offices in Tokyo, Naha, London, New York, and Culver City.) I'll head up the task of re-branding items people think are "weird."

[Scroll down for my "Pocky Party" video. I back dated it to coincide with the original YouTube posting date.]