Chocolate Combination Innovations

We’ve reported several times on odd combinations in the ever-changing Japanese beverages market. Remember the sparkling tea and the azuki Pepsi that got bloggers thirsting for more? Now comes the Chocolate Sparkling from Suntory, a soda drink with chocolate flavoring.

There isn’t actually any chocolate in this drink, but it compensates for this disappointment with a brand logo that has a distinctly royal taste. Although having chocolate in the title might you think this is a beverage for children, the design of the packaging and the equally prominent inclusion of soda means this is very much an older person’s drink.

It seems that chocolate is the flavor of the month. Also released in January is the Mugen Chocolate, a collaboration between Bandai and Meiji.

Of course this is jumping on the mugen puchi-puchi bandwagon, which we covered for the first of many times back in summer 2007.

This time round the product is a small bar of Meiji cholocate that you can break over and over again. Each bar has two places where you can enjoy the sensation, and there are three types to choose from, each based on a real Meiji product. Like the Suntory drink, this has a child-like appeal but is actually a key chain/phone strap, and so more of an accessory that adults would want.

“Mugen” (無限) means “infinite” and this range lives up to its name. The variations never seem to end! What’s next? Something that replicates the pop of opening a jar of jam? The fizz from twisting the cap on a coke bottle?

Our last chocolate-themed introduction today is the Meiji Premium Single, on sale for a limited time only. Like the Chocolate Sparkling, you can see the luxury, adult imagery this product is trying to create through its name, “premium”, and even the font on the packaging.

As more and more people are concerned — for health, ethical or ecological reasons — about where their food comes from, this product cleverly turns this into a selling point, by having each bar made from the cacao from a single country (either Madagascar or the Dominican Republic).

And, like the Kirin World Kitchen series, this product allows consumers to travel to and experience foreign lands through each one having a particular country as its theme. You can visit an exotic place without going further than a convenience store.