Previous thread from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38195889
The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
11–20 of 180 posts
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#12I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
It certainly seems strange. But maybe the demand from a relatively few Japanophiles doesn't outweigh the adminstrative costs of maintaining a much larger number of SKUs (including regulatory requirements) and they'd send boxes of green tea chocolate to go out of date on shelves. I'd have thought a big corporate would have pretty scalable product range management but maybe it's just cheaper to hand that off to importers. Some calculation must presumably be involved.
Though I like to think the Nestlé/Hershey executives have been threatened by immaculately-suited Pocky-toting enforcers of the importers making profits on the novelty arbitrage.
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#13I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
KitKat in the USA is run by Hershey. KitKat globally is run by Nestle. That's one reason why. The second is that in Japan Kit Kat sounds like "good luck" which is why they became popular, and two, why we see such regional variation. (I have 4 Japanese flavors in my NYC fridge right now -- Sweet Potato, Adult Sweetness, Wheat, and Caramel Pudding (which you bake!)
I just ended up ordering some myself after finding out about these lol.
Another perk I've found about treats from overseas is they use actual sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's two different companies. KitKat around the world is Nestle. KitKat in the US is under license to Hershey. Licensing is expensive.
It's Nestle in the UK, and they don't sell the Japanese bonus snacks here either.
License it to Mondelez and suddenly it will have lots of flavors you won't likely buy....
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#15I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
They're good flavors, but not quite mass market compatible outside Japan I'd presume. I used to live in a city with a large japanese enclave and they were pretty well available from local asian grocery stores, though still 5 times as expensive as regular.
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#16>Seemingly on cue, Tristan followed up. “Time for some coming clean,” he confessed. “I’m actually a scammer and the owner of HCH doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
That's on odd admission from the scammer, when they could have said nothing,
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's two different companies. KitKat around the world is Nestle. KitKat in the US is under license to Hershey. Licensing is expensive.
It's Nestle in the UK, and they don't sell the Japanese bonus snacks here either.
It's also hard to understand just how popular KitKats are in Japan and how their products and limited time offers cater uniquely to the Japanese audience.
KitKat has a lot of competition in the UK where caramels are way more popular than weird KK flavors.
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#18I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
KitKat in the USA is run by Hershey. KitKat globally is run by Nestle. That's one reason why. The second is that in Japan Kit Kat sounds like "good luck" which is why they became popular, and two, why we see such regional variation. (I have 4 Japanese flavors in my NYC fridge right now -- Sweet Potato, Adult Sweetness, Wheat, and Caramel Pudding (which you bake!)
> Caramel Pudding (which you bake!)
Oh my god I have some of these I should have looked at the back of the package more closely!
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#19I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
I don't think it's a boner over withholding flavors.
It's likely a profit boner. Margins on obscure flavors aren't projected to be high enough in whatever market, so they don't offer it. But in some other market, projections look good, so they offer it.
Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats
#20I know this is an unimportant thing, but why tf doesn’t kit kat just sell desirable flavors here themselves? What is the deal with the boner these companies have about withholding certain flavors in certain markets?
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