Why We're Now Living in The Golden Age of Snack Food

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:22)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:23)

Tracy, I think it's because of all of the illegal cannabis stores in New York City.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

This could go anywhere.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

I know.

Tracy Alloway (0:32)

All right, go on.

Joe Weisenthal (0:33)

But the thing about them, and I guess it's kind of funny, and I guess it kind of makes sense, and maybe it's also kind of cool, is that the other thing is like, so they sell various weed products, but they also seem to be the favored vendors of all kinds of exotic snack foods in New York City.

Tracy Alloway (0:49)

Right. So if you go into a corner store, probably-

Joe Weisenthal (0:54)

Or just look in the window.

Tracy Alloway (0:55)

Yeah, exactly. You don't have to go in. You can just look.

You will see weed. Probably a lot of these stores are still unlicensed. You will see energy drinks. You will see maybe some elf bars and things like that. And then you will also see lots and lots of snacks. It's like the ultimate vice shop. Yes, for a certain type of person.

You can satisfy all your cravings or almost all of them in one shop.

Joe Weisenthal (1:24)

Yes, absolutely. Not only do they have a lot of chips and snacks, they have the type of snacks that used to be you would get only when one of your colleagues went abroad. So you'd have a colleague that took a trip to the Philippines or took a trip to Hong Kong or something, and then they would come back and they're like, oh, look, I brought like, you know, matcha flavored Kit Kats or Mapo grilled tofu flavored potato chips or durian flavored potato chips. And then it never was like, oh, is there so cool? But now they're everywhere in the stores here.

Tracy Alloway (1:54)

They definitely are more available than they used to be. My experience with this personally is probably a little bit different to a lot of other people as someone who, you know, spent a lot of time in Japan. Yeah, I mean, I have vivid memories of going into like a Don Quijote, which is this big kind of department store, specifically to buy flavored Kit Kats. They were always in the basement.

And there were like dozens of flavors, even in this would have been in like 2001, 2002 And I feel like flavored Kit Kats are to me probably what shrimp is to that character from Forrest Gump.

I could sit here for the next 20 minutes and just like rattle off all the flavors that I remember. I love Kit Kats.

Joe Weisenthal (2:41)

So in doing research for this episode, I came across this great website taquitos.net, which basically reviews every single snack. And so right now they have links like, and I don't know if all the links work because I get the impression that some of these flavors are cycled in and out, but there are links and reviews of 197 different flavors of Doritos that theoretically currently or at some point were sold on Amazon. Doritos Blue Grilled Steak, Doritos Golden Cheese Flavor, Doritos Late Night Tacos at Midnight, Doritos 3D Crunch Chili Cheese Nacho. And then the list just goes on and on. It is nothing like when I was a kid in the US where there was like Doritos and Cool Ranch Doritos.

Like we're living in a golden age.

Tracy Alloway (3:27)

So I disagree a little bit on this point. So yes, there are lots more flavors that exist. But as you just pointed out, like they are not always available.

And okay, in New York, you know, you can go into a weed shop and there's a novelty value to buying like some exotic flavored potato chips alongside, you know, whatever else. But I feel like what this really kind of comes down to is this really, really intelligent marketing strategy where you create all these new types of flavors and you get people talking about them and maybe you don't produce them in huge quantities, but people like to talk about them. People like to, you know, take pictures where they're eating matcha flavored or like sakura flavored Kit Kats or whatever. So like for the companies, it feels like this is kind of a win-win.

Joe Weisenthal (4:17)

Well, I agree with that. And you do see this like on Twitter a lot. I was like, oh, Doritos just teamed up with, you know, Jack in the Box or Doritos just teamed up with so and so. And then there's like a short run thing. So I do get the impression some of them are. By the way, I just came across Doritos Gold Peking Duck flavored.