Honey Butter Craze

Honey Butter Chips from Haitai-Calbee Co. Ltd

Honey Butter Chip (also known as 허니버터칩 in Korea, ポテトチップスしあわせバター, Happiness Butter Potato Chips in Japan)^[1] is the latest trendy snack produced by Haitai-Calbee Confectionery Co., Ltd on Early August 2014. This snack is so popular that it has created a new trend called the Honey-Butter Craze among South Koreans.^[2]

Overview

The Honey-Butter Craze, or Honey Butter Yeolpung (or craze, Korean: 열풍, Chinese: 熱風) is a term use to describe a craze brought by Honey Butter Chip which first came out in Korea in August 2014. Honey Butter Chip is a product of Haitai-Calbee Co., a joint company of Korean Confectionery Company Haitai and Japanese Confectionery Company Calbee.^[3] The formal version of Honey Butter Chip named ‘Happiness Butter Potato Chips’ was produced by Calbee in Japan, 2012. This honey flavored buttery potato chip did not gain popularity in Japan and was only sold during a limited period of time.^[4] However, when Honey Butter Chip was introduced in Korea by Haitai-Calbee in August 2014, it got an explosive response from the young consumers and quickly spread through Social-Network-Service during the last quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015. Haitai-Calbee enjoyed a tremendous popularity with Honey Butter Chip that it was not available in stores and they were being resold online for three times of its original price.^[5]

Popularity

Seven Defender Of Justice

Sales Record

After ‘Honey Butter Chip’ released in August, Haitai-Calbee has officially announced that its sales on January and February in 2015 have reached 23 billion won (USD 20.3 million), and has forecast of sales of one hundred billion won (USD one hundred million) by year-end.^[6]

Consumer's Response

The product has gone viral through Social-Network-Services and earned its popularity in Korea.^[7] Haitai-Calbee had to temporarily suspend its order in November 2014 because of overwhelming demand.^[8] "Honey Butter Chip may be one of the most difficult products to buy these days”, said a Korean convenient store owner. And many convenience stores put up paper signs with “Honey Butter Chip, sold out”.^[9] Some stores made ‘Honey Butter Chip waiting list’ for customers and limited the selling quantity as one bag for a person.^[10] In January 2015, a so-called “Honey Butter Chip-Hunting” smartphone app was launched. The app tells the availability of the product at near convenience stores. More than 10,000 people had downloaded the app.^[11] Due to the scarcity, in December 2014, Honey Butter Chip is traded back and forth on e-commerce websites at inflated prices. On eBay, which does not provide South-Korea shipping service, you need to pay $50 for a 60-gram bag of the chip of which the original price is about $1.36.^[12]

Recipes on YouTube

Some people posted homemade Honey Butter Chip recipes on YouTube.^[13] By using things that can be easily found, people use their own ways to make potato chips, of which the flavors are as same as original product.

Company's Response

Although the product is in short supply, the company has not taken the increase of production into consideration yet, because the actual demand is not obvious and the craze can be short-lived.^[14]

Plagiarized Products

The great popularity of Honey Butter Chip has swept across the country. To keep up with the huge demand of Honey Butter Chip, Haitai-Calbee has raise its production by three times and put its production line in full operation for 24 hours.^[15] However, the shortage of honey butter chip has made consumers turn to copy products as a replacement of Honey Butter Chip.

After Honey Butter Chip became famous, many companies have produced similar products which plagiarize the name, design, and flavor of its original ^[16] to take advantage of the popularity of Honey Butter Chip.^[17] The word ‘Honey Butter’ are used by companies to promote their food products to the consumers as if it is a magic spell for high sales of product.^[18] A major Korean food maker, Nongshim has launched ‘Sumi Chip Honey Mustard’ in December, whose taste is similar to Honey Butter Chip. Unlike Honey Butter Chip, Sumi chip was easier to find in many stores. Therefore, consumers started to buy Sumi chip as a replacement. The Sumi Chip became more popular than its original, and sold four times more than the Honey Butter Chip with average of ten thousands pack per day. Nongshim has achieved the new record of having the greatest monthly sales in the Korean snack industry.^[19] Because of the supply shortage and many other copy products, Honey Butter Chip which once had the highest sales during the last quarter of 2014 fell to the third place in the snack sales of January and February, 2015.^[20]

Other Products

Plagiarized products are not only limited in the area of confectioneries and food products, but even in other goods such as cosmetic products made of Honey and Butter,^[21] and furniture designed in the shape of pack of Honey Butter Chip.^[22]

References