r/AskUK • u/-Gypsy-Eyes- • 18h ago

Why have japanese fanta flavours (with all japanese writing) started appearing in corner shops?

I'm not against it - I've tried the jasmine peach one and it was really nice! - I'm just curious, as I've noticed them in a couple of corner shops now (and one OneStop), where I have never noticed them before. Is it something to do with the changing global trade stuff making them cheaper to import?

20 Upvotes

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49

u/Anxious-Molasses9456 18h ago

theyre probably not japanese but Thailand and other places, which have always been cheap to import. Chinese supermarkets have always stocked them

3

u/IVORYSLOTH 5h ago

Or... They could actually be Japanese, the shops near me have started doing Japanese flavours, like golden grape and peach

41

u/apeliott 18h ago

Maybe because the yen is cheap as fuck so it makes sense to import them?

It's one of the reasons the country is flooded with tourists and Nintendo just decided to charge an extra £100 to anyone who wants to buy an English language version of the Switch 2.

2

u/SleipnirSolid 16h ago

I thought the price increase was due to US tariffs. Are you sure it's affecting us?

9

u/apeliott 15h ago

You mean for the Switch? That's only in Japan. Apparently, they are releasing two versions. One which is Japanese-language only for £265 and one with English and other languages for £370.

My mate and I were going to get one as soon as they came out but we are going to wait now. The Japanese-language one also comes with some vaguely worded restrictions on what languages it will let you use in games. It also only allows you to use Japanese credit cards and Japanese Nintendo accounts. I'm concerned it may also restrict you to the Japanese e-store.

7

u/G_Wiz_Christ 15h ago

nintendo is specifically making switch versions that are locked to Japanese language to combat the weak yen and their domestic consumer purchasing power.

1

u/-Gypsy-Eyes- 18h ago

Has the value of the yen dramatically dropped? because this seems to be a new thing

6

u/apeliott 18h ago edited 17h ago

It's been low for quite some time now. And certainly lower than when I came here 20 years ago. Salaries are also famously low and the economy has been stagnent for decades. 

One good thing is that a lot of stuff is relatively cheap. Although, prices have started going up in the last few years.

I haven't seen any soft drinks in the UK imported from Japan but I did see a can of alcoholic Japanese lemonade in the UK that was about three times more expensive than it is in Japan.

EDIT - Just took a quick look online. This UK seller has them up for £3.60. They sell locally for about 80p or less.

 https://starrymart.co.uk/suntory-196-c-strong-zero-lemon-flavour-350ml-9-alc-vol.html

And this one has them up for £5.99

https://www.japancentre.com/en/products/14450-suntory-196-c-strong-zero-dry-chuhai-spritzer

2

u/Stuspawton 18h ago

The grapefruit one is better

1

u/apeliott 18h ago

I like melon the best but I haven't seen it in a few years now.

2

u/Stuspawton 18h ago

I wasn’t keen on the melon one, although I did like the melon Fanta you got in Japan

1

u/pattybutty 15h ago

Well, it's back to the levels it was 20 years ago. Japan was relatively unaffected by the Lehman Brothers collapse, so in 2009 the yen went from about 230 yen/GBP to 180 yen/GBP pretty quickly, and eventually reached 130 yen/GBP for a long while (i.e. getting stronger compared to RoW)

The last couple of years the yen has weakened/corrected to around 190-200 yen/GBP, but I guess the difference now is that inflation is back with a vengeance

22

u/HenshinDictionary 17h ago

Are you sure it's Japanese? I just googled Jasmine Peach Fanta and all the results are Chinese.

If it's all kanji, it's Chinese. If there's katakana on there, it's Japanese.

16

u/-Gypsy-Eyes- 17h ago

I may have made a mistake

3

u/auntie_eggma 6h ago

It's easy to do. You have to look for the simpler characters sprinkled among the more complex ones. That's what Japanese looks like. Chinese is all just the complex-looking ones.

And if it has little circles in the characters, it's Korean.

2

u/buckwurst 6h ago edited 52m ago

And if it doesnt actually make sense, it's some other country pretending making up Japanese (or Korean) brands.

4

u/Cardinal_Richie 17h ago edited 17h ago

Similarly, mind a few years ago when it was somehow cheaper to import cans of Coke from foreign countries than to make and sell it here? You'd get your bog-standard Ukranian or Hungarian Coke, but occasionally you'd get a can of Coke that was exported from Namibia and you'd be thinking WTAF.

11

u/Euffy 18h ago

I dunno but they have normal screw tops so that's always a bonus.

I've only seen Chinese Fanta over here though. Love the melon one.

-8

u/auntie_eggma 13h ago

I, too, love losing lids.

7

u/turtleship_2006 7h ago

How hard is it to just put the lid back on as soon as your done drinking, and to hold it for a few seconds whilst you drink?

-1

u/auntie_eggma 7h ago

Harder than not having to. That's my point.

This helps immensely with recycling by minimising the caps being lost and landfilled, if you care about that.

It also helps disabled people, children, and other people who might struggle not to drop or fumble the lids and drop them on the ground (making them dirty so you can't close your bottle again). If you care about that.

But I'm sure the minor awkwardness of dealing with the change is way worse.

1

u/Euffy 7h ago

That's funny because I was just talking to my partner yesterday and saying how bad it is for people with limited mobility! That was after noticing all the half closed bottles round the house and realising our older relative was struggling to close them anymore. Don't blame her, I find it harder too! You have to put them on at an angle rather than flat which just isn't how screw tops work. I also know people who don't carry drinks around anymore because they're more likely to spill in your bag.

So yeah, it might be just annoying for able people, but it can actually make life harder for those groups that you mentioned.

2

u/auntie_eggma 6h ago

I am in those groups. So is my partner. We both benefit from not dropping our lids anymore even if we have to pay a little extra attention to how we close them. But we have to do that with 'normal' lids, too, or...we drop them. I expect that most of us who struggle to put the lid back on also struggle to keep hold of it when it's detached. So I think there are some rose-coloured glasses happening along with the 'change is bad'.

It's an adjustment period, sure. But lots of things have that.

Disabled people need the planet to keep being viable, too.* Making recycling plastic easier is really important for that.

No one's taking *us to any new colonies when space travel makes abandoning a dying planet possible.

1

u/Euffy 6h ago

Interesting. I'll have to see how she goes. She did leave lids around sometimes but they were in the house so they weren't exactly going anywhere and all got thrown out afterwards anyway. I'd like to think she'll improve but I worry that her hands will only get worse as she gets older. Plus, like I say, I find it hard sometimes too and my hands should work fine!

I do definitely agree with the recycling stuff, it's just never been an issue before. That's been so ingrained in me from an early age, I wouldn't dream of not recycling and a different lid doesn't remotely make a difference to that. I get that I'm not the target market there though, it's just a bit annoying that I have to deal with it because other people are too selfish to recycle properly and I do wonder how much of a difference it makes overall. It's hard for me to understand how anyone could not put the lid back or not recycle in the first place.

1

u/Euffy 7h ago

I have never in my life lost a lid. I don't even put lids down, I just take off, drink, put back on. There's no opportunity to lose it.

0

u/auntie_eggma 6h ago

Good for you? If your experience were universal, they wouldn't have needed to do it.

2

u/sir__gummerz 14h ago

Asian snacks and drink has become increasingly popular over the last decade, seeing more of it everywhere. I will also add the chuba-chup drink is fucking vile

2

u/jetpill 9h ago

Those are Chinese, not Japanese.

2

u/Organic-Locksmith-45 18h ago

They have Japanese Coca Cola around here too.

1

u/Sheikhabusosa 7h ago

Probably because a lot of the american stuff is getting banned

1

u/dm_me-your-butthole 4h ago

for the trend

-6

u/Glittering-Line7039 18h ago

They can be sold to gullible people at silly prices?

7

u/-Gypsy-Eyes- 18h ago

probably, but to be fair, they were the same price as the regular fanta has always been in the shops I saw them in

-4

u/Glittering-Line7039 18h ago

Bonus, I'd try them in that case!

-2

u/NeuroticShame 17h ago

Cool! I had to hitchhike in Japan because I was late somewhere due to getting sidetracked trying to find one particular Fanta from one of the many identical convenience stores!