Honey Butter Chips

Honey Butter Chips is a brand of fried potato chips manufactured by Haitai Calbee and sold in South Korea. The snacks were first made available in August 2014, and they are renowned for their rise to popularity through social media viral marketing from late 2014 to early 2015. The product was created by Korean confectioner Haitai in a joint effort with Japanese snack manufacturer Calbee. This snack was so popular that it created a trend called the Honey-Butter Craze among South Koreans.[1]

The snack is called Happiness Butter Potato Chips in Japan.

Haitai-Calbee joint ventures

Calbee previously produced a Honey Butter Chip in 2012 for the Japanese market. Calbee set up a joint venture with Haitai and expanded its snack market to Korea in order to increase profits in the Japanese snack market.[2][3]

Honey Butter Craze

The Honey-Butter Craze, or Honey Butter Yeolpung, is a craze for the Honey Butter Chip product which arose in August 2014. 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 sold for a limited period of time. However, when Honey Butter Chip was introduced in Korea by Haitai-Calbee in August 2014, its popularity exploded among young consumers and quickly spread via social networks during the last quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015. Haitai-Calbee enjoyed such tremendous popularity with Honey Butter Chip that the product was unavailable in stores and was being resold online for three times its original price.[4]

Although limited in production and supply, the product has taken over the Korean market. To meet demand, Haitai-Calbee plans to build a factory in South Korea. This new facility has begun operation since early 2016.

After 'Honey Butter Chip' was released in August, Haitai-Calbee officially announced that sales in January and February 2015 had 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.[5]

Line extensions

• Jagabee Honey Mild
• Honey butter potato fries created by Haitai-Calbee
• Honey Tong Tong
• Ridged triangle potato chips created by Haitai (not joint with Calbee) after the viral popularity of Honey Butter Chips

Competitor products

After Honey Butter Chip became famous, many companies have produced similar products which plagiarize the name, design, and flavor of its original[19] to take advantage of the popularity of Honey Butter Chip.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22] 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.[23]

Recipes on YouTube

During the craze, homemade Honey Butter Chip recipes began to be posted on YouTube.[27] Using ingredients that can be easily found, people can make their own potato chips with similar flavors to the original product.

External links

• Haitai English Website
• https://www.calbee.com/