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Secret behind the craze for Honey Butter Chip

Posted December. 04, 2014 05:17,   

한국어

What is the thing that people want most but is most difficult to do these days? It is watching Interstellar in an IMAX theater while eating Honey Butter Chip. It is hard to book a ticket for the movie and is even harder to buy Honey Butter Chip. When the snack was launched in September, one could get two bags for the price of one. Today, it is hard to find people who recently ate it. Many say that they went to a retail store only to find nothing. There is no cornering the chips but there is shortage.

Even I who do not follow the trend in snacks began to hear about Honey Butter Chip here and there from last week. At first, I suspected it could be a new sales gimmick of Haitai, the manufacturer, which intentionally cuts production to induce scarcity. Some said that Haitai ran the factory at full capacity but production decreased due to the problem of the machine. Yesterday, the snack maker explained, "We are producing at full capacity 24/7 in three shifts at the factory in Wonju in Gangwon Province, but we cannot catch up with the demand.”

A fad is like a cloud so that it is hard to know how it happens and disappears. There are many rumors around the craze for Honey Butter Chip, but it sounds more plausible that the snack became popular among students and then some celebrities competitively mentioned it on social networking sites to create the fad. Although it is not a global hit like Psy’s Gangnam Style through a word of mouth, it is another example that shows the importance the word of mouth in social networking sites.

Can we add Honey Butter Chip to the list of this year’s popular goods? Potato chips are supposed to be salty but Honey Butter Chip broke the prejudice. According to those who tasted the snack, it is a little sweet and aromatic. Literally, it is potato chips flavored with honey and butter. Western potato chips are too salty for Koreans. Whether Honey Butter Chip will be a long-term bestseller or not will remain to be seen because only a few people have tasted it.