Strawberry chocolate shrimp chips: For when you want sweets plus seafood and/or are pregnant

Potato chips are only one half of Calbee’s pincer attack on your salt-receptor taste buds, though, as the company also produces the phenomenally popular line of shrimp chips called "kappa ebisen."

The extremely competitive nature of the Japanese junk food industry means that you have to keep innovating though, and sometimes in the process of pushing through existing boundaries, you end up in strange new places, which explains why Calbee is now selling shrimp chips covered with strawberry chocolate.

For this crustacean/confectionary crossover, Calbee collaborated with Hokkaido-based chocolate maker Royce, which has in the past offered chocolate-covered potato chips. Believe it or not, though, there’s only one portion of the new joint product that’s completely unprecedented, the strawberry part.

Calbee and Royce have already released a version of the former’s shrimp chips covered with regular chocolate, which wasn’t only attention-grabbing, but was also the best selling souvenir item across Calbee’s dedicated Calbee Plus retail outlets between February 16 and March 15.

Emboldened by their success, Calbee and Royce decided to follow up with a version using strawberry chocolate, the hot flavor of the moment that’s been showing up in everything from Starbucks lattes to Gundam donuts.

To give the newest shrimp chips even more of a fruity tang, Royce has upgraded its ordinary strawberry chocolate by mixing in extra strawberry powder. Of course, this is in addition to the inherent crunchy saltiness of kappa ebisen its fans have come to know and love.

The 713-yen strawberry chocolate shrimp chips are available exclusively at Calbee Plus stores and are being rolled out gradually, with the Tokyo-area branches in Tokyo Station, Makuhari Shintoshin, Odaiba’s Diver City, Sola Machi, Harajuku’s Takeshitadori, New Chitose Airport Calbee Plus and the Kokusaidori location in Okinawa getting them by April 8.

Just remember, though, these are snacks, so don’t make a meal out of them. If you spoil your appetite, you won’t have any room for your spaghetti popsicle.

Source: Narinari

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