This is some serious convenience store shelf space for one company's probiotic drink yogurts. Only the product on the left carries an approved health claim (FOSHU), the others contain probiotic strains that have been associated with health benefits, but no claims on the labels.
From left to right:
Meiji Bulgaria Drink Yogurt 明治ブルガリアヨーグルト (intestinal condition health claim)
Meiji PA-3 Drink Yogurt (strain associated with lower purine levels)
Meiji LG21 Drink Yogurt Low-Sugar Low-Calorie (strain associated with lower H. pylori levels)
Meiji LG21 Drink Yogurt (strain associated with lower H. pylori levels)
Meiji R-1 Drink Yogurt Low-Sugar Low-Calorie (strain associated with improved immune function)
Meiji R-1 Drink Yogurt (strain associated with improved immune function)
http://www.meiji.co.jp
Takanashi is selling a premium low temperature pasteurized milk. This milk is pasteurized at 66 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, as compared with the typical pasteurization conditions in Japan which are 130 degrees for 2 seconds. Lower temperature pasteurization is much more time consuming, thus the premium price, but there is a perceived taste difference by many consumers. The most prominent structural changes to the milk are denaturing of milk proteins.
But Takahanshi has expanded the concept and calls it the "Love Method" or the "Love and Care Method", which might be read "produced with love and care method".
There are 3 elements of the "Love and Care Method" are the following:
1) low temperature pasteurization,
2) UV light blocking packaging (to reduce light induced oxidation and related structural changes),
and
3) sourcing milk exclusively from Kuzumaki Town in Iwate Prefecture, where high-quality milk is consistently produced with love and care.
高橋乳業 葛巻町 岩手県 愛情製法 低温殺菌 遮光パッケージ
http://www.takanashi-milk.co.jp/
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
Selling soy based drinks is a natural for Kikkoman, the soy sauce company. They have a full line of soy drink (or "soy milk" although dairy people complain about that term) in a wide range of flavors. Yesterday in a convenience store I spotted this item and see that Kikkoman is getting into the high value chilled cup market, going up against the mostly coffee-milk offerings. The product is called Soypresso and the only flavor was caramel. Pricing is a tad higher than PB coffee-milk chilled cups, but far cheaper than the most expensive in class - Starbucks. The label notes that the coffee is specially selected by Kikkoman. Might cater to people who actively want to buy soy, but in the chilled cup market, taste is extremely important and that has always been a challenge for soy drinks. I tried this and it was not bad, but the soy flavor was masked with coffee and caramel flavor. 豆乳 キッコーマン
http://www.k-tounyu.jp/
Suntory Beverage has incorporated Bluetooth and IoT technology into some of its vending machines in order to allow customers to connect to a special app on their smartphones. When people buy healthy Suntory drinks from Suntory Green+ vending machines and connect to the Suntory Green+ app, they can accumulate points which can be used for future purchases of FOSHU drinks (that is drinks with approved health claims). The connection is via Bluetooth, but the technology is from a French company called SmartBeacon. The concept of all appliances around us connecting to the internet is coming fast and is called the Internet of Things (IoT). サントリー食品インターナショナル㈱ サントリーグリーンプラス 自動販売機
http://www.suntory.co.jp/
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
MOS Burger is the premium burger chain where you wait a little longer and pay a little more, but the burgers are as good as they look in photos like this. There are two special burgers this summer, a new BBQ MOS burger (tomato, special smokey sauce, onion, mayo, and American mustard) and a return of the Rich MOS Cheese Burger with Gorgonzola Sauce (tomato, mayo, cheese slice, American mustard, onion, and meat sauce). モスバーガー リッチモスチーズバーガー ゴルゴンゾーラチーズソース バーベキューモスバーガー 野菜と果実の特製ソース
http://mos.jp
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
The coffee shop chain Pronto has collaborated with the Spanish company AMC Juices, using their ITT technology, to develop three 100% chilled fruit-vegetable juices. ITT stands for Instant Treatment Technology and shortens the standard heat treatment time for juices to only 1/7th the time it used to take, preserving a better fresh taste. The products are called itt Juices and the attributes are summarized as "100% Straight Juice + Super Fruits & Veggie + ITT".The super fruits used in the three varieties are kale, pomegranate and acerola. itt Juices are available at all Pronto stores nationwide. プロント イットジュース
http://www.pronto.co.jp/ittjuice/
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
CGC is an alliance of smaller grocers for volume purchases and private brands. This CGC private brand milk advertises the milk as being from Hokkaido which is the most famous dairy area in Japan. Interestingly, the back of the package shows that the milk was processed by the Gunma Prefecture farm cooperative 群馬牛乳協業組合. Nothing wrong with that, but I thought their reason for existence was to process and promote local milk, whereas in this case the virtues of milk from Hokkaido are being touted. CGC牛乳 北海道産
Spotted these new chilled coffees from Toyo Beverage in a convenience store. Very attractive packaging, but lined up next to one another the explanation on the packaging can be a tad confusing. The Cafe au Lait on the left notes use of 100% open fire roasted arabica beans. The arabica beans are an Ethiopian mocha blend. In this case, "mocha" is used to refer to the bean variety.
On the right is a Cafe Mocha which uses Italian couverture chocolate. In this case, the "mocha" refers to coffee variety that includes chocolate and milk. The labeling is not a mistake, but it assumes a decent amount of knowledge on the part of the consumer, or else it assumes that most people just look at the illustrations.
トーヨービバレッジ カフェオレ カフェモカ クーベルチュール・チョコレート 直火焙煎
Sapporo is offering a limited edition of its flagship beer brand Sapporo Black Label, called The Hokkaido. This is only available in Hokkaido and uses Hokkaido barley and hops. The hops comes from the Furano area, and the barley comes from both the Furano and the Okhotsk areas of Hokkaido. Some might be confused by Okhotsk, because that is the name of the sea north of Hokkaido as well as a Russian coastal city. This Okhotsk referred to here is a northern sub-prefecture (Hokkaido is one big prefecture). For disambiguation, I have added links to the Wikipedia pages for Okhotsk and Furano below.
サッポロビール オホーツク 富良野 北海道 大麦 ホップ
http://www.sapporobeer.jp/product/sapporo/kurolabel_thehokkaido/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furano,_Hokkaido
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhotsk_Subprefecture
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
In honor of the Olympics in Rio, McDonald's is running a number of specials. The most prominent are the "certain victory"burgers. Certain Victory is a rough translation of the the Japanese 必勝 on the bandanas you might have seen fans wearing at sporting events. The meaning of this would also encompass "victory or bust", etc.
These two sandwiches were developed with the Olympics in mind. The pineapple of the pineapple/beef burger represents a gold medal, and the tomato of the tomato/chicken sandwich represents the rising sun of the rising sun flag. マックドナルド 必勝
http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/
Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.
