Yummy or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

#13 LE WHIF

Christmas is coming and you will soon feel fed up with food, invaded by treats and chocolate.

Your body will urge you to stop eating and you’ll soon have to remove the button of your trousers if you want to stay alive.

Even if you know you’re going to face problems, you can’t help but eating chocolate. It’s Christmas time right?

I have the weird solution of your christmas problems:

“Le Whif”.

Le Whif is a new approach to eat by…breathing.

With le Whif, you don’t eat food anymore, you don’t swallow anymore: you inhale food, and more specifically chocolate, into your mouth and you can taste it, without chewing. It is a new experience of flavor and the greatest news is that you can do it without taking a single calorie!

You can even choose your favorite flavor: Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Raspberry, Coffe...

This project were born in Harvard, created by the professor David Edwards in collaboration with some students and designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs working in Edwards’ ArtScience Labs centered around Le Laboratoire, in Paris, France.

“As sweet as chocolate as light as air”

Are you ready to breathe?

Yummy or not?

[yummyornotsblog]

#12 BILK

I have never talked about an alcoholic beverage in this blog but just this one won’t hurt. It’s Christmas time and you deserve a special festive weird product.

This one is for all the beer-lovers:

If you are never tired of discovering a brand new beer, if you feel risk-taking and daring I am glad to present the BILK

Not difficult to guess, it is indeed a beer with milk, which is sold in the Japanese market.

In France, and probably in other countries, we are told since we are little kids that we need to consume at least three milk products a day.

Let’s hope we can count BILK as one of the three!

So yummy or not? 

[yummyornotsblog]

#11 TABASCO X JELLYBEANS

All of you may know the famous spicy sauce Tabasco. The American company McIlhenny sells this product, exclusively made from Tabasco pepper, vinegar and salt. Its hot flavor is used in order to spice up various traditional American recipes.

  And all of you may know the Jelly Beans candies: these small bean-shaped sugar candies, with a gel interior, which are sold in a wide variety of colors and flavors are emblematic of the childhood period.

But you may not know the Tabasco flavored Jellybean!

  Released in the US market, this special candy, born from a co-branding strategy, doesn't target children or sensitive palates...

So, want to set yourself a challenge?

Give it a try and tell us if this is yummy or not.

[yummyornotsblog]

#10 PEPSI

Cola is probably the most common beverage you can meet in a market. It is the symbol of a globalized world, since anywhere you are in the world, you can find this product and its very standardized taste and flavor. 

But this strategy of standardization and globalization also coexists with an adaptive one. 

Indeed, the cola brand Pepsi, launched a lot of different flavors and adaptations of its cola beverage according to the special features of a country. 

That’s why you could find these weird flavors during your trips:

Ice cream in Russia

Cappuccino in Russia and Romania

Pepsi Summer Chill (apple flavor) in Poland

Pepsi Gold (white sapote flavor) in Japan, Germany, Finland and Central Europe 

Fire (hot cinnamon) and Ice (cool mint) Pepsi in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines

  Pepsi White (yogurt flavored) in Japan

Azuki Sweet Bean Pepsi in Japan

Pepsi Blue Hawaii (pineapple lemon flavored) in Japan

Pepsi Pink (strawberry milk flavor) in Japan

  Pepsi Holiday (cinnamon) in USA and Canada

Pepsi Samba (mango and Tamarind) in Australia

So, do you still believe that cola is a standardized product ?

And the most important: yummy or not ?  

[yummyornotsblog]

#9 PRINGLES

The potato chips brand Pringles, owned by Kellogg’s, is known for the variety of its flavors: salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion, cheddar cheese, barbecue, hot and spicy etc.

You probably think a Pringles product wouldn’t surprise you… 

That’s because you never heard of the three limited-edition holiday flavors released in the US: Pumpkin Pie Spice, White Chocolate Peppermint, and Cinnamon & Sugar.

  It seems we can find this kind of product only on the us market : does it mean that American consumers are more adventurous than others? Or is it because they are fond of the Christmas and other celebrations atmosphere?

Sugar-based potato chips don’t seem to be a real success there according to the critics we can find on the Internet!

Not sure it would ever appear on the European market...

So yummy or not ? 

[yummyornotsblog]

#8 BURGER KING

In the United States, Bacon can be considered as a mythic food. It is not only a slice of smoked pork that you grill, it is a real experience that people deeply love (and especially for its smell when it is cooked – we can notice this when we take a look at all the different objects created around this product).

So as a result of this love story, Burger King decided to launch in the summer of 2012 the « bacon sundae ».

Indeed, bacon was already in almost all of its food items (sandwiches of all kinds) but not in their deserts. And since bacon was loved so much by its consumers, Burger King decided that people should love it enough to appreciate it in their ice-cream.

So Burger King’s bacon sundae was made of vanilla soft serve ice cream that was topped with a mix of hot fudge, caramel, bacon crumbles and a piece of bacon… 

It is not healthy at all (510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar) but “when it comes to love you don't count the cost”…

 So yummy or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

#7 SUSHI POPPERS

  Sushi is a Japanese food that expanded quite well worldwide. It is very common to find it everywhere. This food item suits well changes and tastes diversity since it can be adapted to the country (we may think about the example of chicken sushi sold by Sushi Shop in France for example).

But let me tell you about a sushi product you have probably never heard of before: Sushi Poppers.

Sushi Poppers are not a tastes’ adaptation to a special country. It is not a new or unusual sushi flavor, it is a new and unusual way to eat sushi, to consume this product.

“A Sushi Popper is a portable tube with fresh pre-sliced sushi that is pushed up from bottom and eaten from the top.”

This is what we can read on the website of the brand, an American Start-Up named Popper Foods based in Las Vegas.

That is to say that the sushi Poppers contains sushi in a plastic tube and in order to make it easier to eat, people can push it up from the bottom thanks to a stick which encloses soy sauce.

  So if you are interested, you can taste the California Roll, the Chicken Teriyaki, the Vegetarian Roll or the Spicy Shrimp Sushi Poppers. You can buy it online (here) in packs of six and it is delivery daily!

So yummy or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

#6 JIMMY DEAN

You may like pancakes.

And you probably like sausages too.

  You might have already tried to eat them together for breakfast, it may sound weird but not that much. We often eat a lot of different foods with pancakes. Pancakes lead to creativity. 

But have you ever imagined eating these two ingredients together, on a stick ? 

The brand Jimmy Dean launched this product in the United States and granted the (weird) wish of an always available microwavable pancakes & sausage. 

Let’s imagine a sausage wrapped in a sweet pancake and standing on a stick. Easy to cook, easy to eat, whenever you want.

It may not appear weird enough to you, especially if you are used to this association of tastes.

So now, if I tell you the brand launched other tastes ?

Like : chocolate chips in the pancake which wraps the sausage.

And if you are still not convinced, what about the blueberries ones ?

  Yummy or not ? 

[yummyornotsblog]

#5 MARMITE

  If you are about to travel to England, you have to taste Marmite. It is one of the weirdest products you will discover there. It is a thick, sticky and brown spread made from yeast extract. It is a very salty product with a powerful taste but it is also known for its high nutritional content. Healthier than the Nutella spread, it is very popular in the UK but also in New Zealand and South Africa. Traditionally eaten on bread, toast or crackers it is also often paired with cheese. Starbucks in the UK has a cheese and Marmite sandwich on its menu.

Marmite is part of the British food culture but not everyone there consumes or is fond of it. Indeed, very self-conscious about the fact that people can find Marmite disgusting, the brand usually uses in its advertising campaigns the division it provokes in the country. When you taste Marmite, there is certainly a love or hate reaction:

So love it or hate it ? 

[yummyornotsblog]

#4 KIT-KAT

If you have the chance to travel to Japan, you will soon discover how the brand Kit-Kat is important there.

Whereas in other countries Kit Kat is just a simple snack which has always the same form : a chocolate bar that you consume during « a break », there are more than 200 flavors existing in Japan !

Fruits as strawberry, lemon or pear

Vegetables as sweet potatoes or soybean

Baked goods as Strawbery Cheesecake or Cinammon Cookie

Beverages as Matcha Green Tea or Brown Sugar Syrup

And even weirder tastes like Red Bean Sandwich » ( ?!) or wasabi...

  This large amount of flavors in Japan shows a real plebiscite for the product which is adored there.

The reason of this huge sucess comes from the name of the product, Kit-Kat. Japanese consumers pronounce it "Kitto Katsu" which litteraly means in Japanese "Good luck, you’re gonna make it !"

Thanks to the meaning of its name in the japanese language, and to a marketing strategy that stresses that point, Kit-Kat is the lucky charm of many Japanese people who consume it before taking exams or job interviews!

So, lucky or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

#3 BenNaNa

BenNaNa is an alien in the ice cream market.

It is a peel-able, banana-shaped ice cream sold by Nestlé in China and most of the time consumed by children. You can eat it exactly as if you were eating a real banana. You roll down the yellow parts like a banana skin to discover a vanilla (?!) ice cream core.

Beyond this innovative form, that could already justify its weirdness, BenNana doesn’t melt. At all. Not even in very hot temperatures and for a long period. (During three hours according to the brand).

In a phrase, BenNana is a banana-shaped, vanilla-ice cream, that doesn’t melt.

So, Yummy or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

#2 HAAGEN-DAZS

Haagen-Dazs is known for its gourmet flavors and it may embody the word « yummy » to you. So you’re probably wondering at this very moment why I should dedicate an article to this brand while my blog is supposed to determine if something is yummy or not.

It’s probably because you haven’t heard of the brand new product Haagen-Dazs launched in Japan this spring : the Tomato and Carrot-Flavored Ice Cream...

  The tomato one is made with a combination of cherry juice and tomato paste and the carrot one mixes concentrated carrot juice, and orange juice concentrate.

So before making a grimace of disgust and screaming"OF COUSE NOT, NO NEED TO ASK IF IT'S YUMMY OR NOT!"

It would be good to notice that it’s a special recipe that differs from the usual ones on a nutritionnal level. Indeed, it only includes 8,5% fat wheareas the typical Haagen-Dazs ice creams are blended with 12 to 14% fat. 

Not only to adapt to the Japanese taste’s, Haagen-Dazs proposes a healthy product and since it is also an important trend in occidental markets, don’t be surprised to find it in the near future close to your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream !

[yummyornotsblog]

#1 OREO

Oreo is one of the most known cookies in the world.

This monument of the snack food industry, marketed by the US brand Nabisco appeared very recently in France

(-For my greatest pleasure-)

and only a few flavors are sold : the original one, the « double creamed » twice fulled with frosting, one coated with white chocolate and anoter with milk chocolate.

These are very classical flavors in order to test the French market which is also known for being quite traditional and conservative when it comes to food.

But let’s take a look at all the different flavors we can find abroad!

Oreo is sold in more that 100 countries and it is a great example of tastes’ diversity : it shows how a brand can adapt to local preferences to implant its product in a perennial way.

  OREO Green Tea Ice Cream Flavor (China)

OREO Blueberry Ice Cream Flavor (Indonesia)

OREO Orange Ice Cream Flavor (Indonesia)

OREO Alfajor (Argentina)

OREO Duo Dulce De Leche And Banana (Argentina)

OREO Double-Fruit Raspberry And Blueberry (China)

  OREO Double-Fruit: Orange And Mango (China)

Yummy or not ?

[yummyornotsblog]

Hey there

What a great experience when freshly settled in a foreign country, you enter into a supermarket.

You feel lost, wondering where you could find your favorite cookies you're used to eating every morning since you’re five years old, and slowly completely depressed when you realize that you won’t find them at all. The way the seller looked at you when you asked for your “petit-beurres” (you REALLY love them) was irrevocable.

Or you can feel amazed: new products, new colors, new packaging, new ways to market them. 

I am part of the second group and that’s why I decided to launch this blog.

I’d like to share food discoveries from around the world. Food products which seem crazy or weird but not only in order to judge if these little treasures are yummy or not. Indeed, I’d like to think about the differences that exist from a country to another and sometimes for the exact same brand.

> Why is it the same? Or why are the flavor and the size different?

> Why this product “flopped” in a country while it’s a bestseller in another?

The way brands adapt their products to a special market will be the main subject of this blog.

Using my own discoveries or my friends’ and family’s ones, I’ll try to give a glance to tastes’ diversity and rituals in food consumption around the world.

And if you want to submit an original product you discovered abroad or a special one that comes from your own country and that would intrigue a young Parisian like me, don’t hesitate to leave your suggestions or experiences here. I’d be glad to share it.

  Let’s start tasting!