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Yawamochi Ice Cream
A Successor to the Azuki Bars
Date:22, Dec, 2017
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
About our introductory articles


Hello, everybody. Today, I'm picking up "Yawamochi Ice Cream" produced by Imuraya. You must find the ones at convenience stores and supermarkets. Why am I taking "Yawamochi" not "Azuki Bars?" That will be clear later.


Imuraya's origin is that the founder had produced Japanese confectioneries with azuki beans in the Meiji era. So it was partly reasonable they developed "Azuki Bars," an ice cream bar with azuki, in 1973. However, it soon seemed difficult for them to grow up more with only depending upon "Azuki Bars." It means they needed the next hit. My conclusion says "Yawamochi Ice Cream" became it.

"Yawamochi Ice Cream" first appeared in 2012 November. They say that it was launched catching up the fashion of Japanese sweets at the time. Now, don't form a hasty conclusion. It was not just a chaser.

Imuraya potentially longed for the next hit, a coming leading product of theirs. Not a makeshift one. It needed to include their originality and history. So they chose a combination of mochi and azuki beans. Mochi (rice cakes) is very familiar to Japanese people. And using azuki beans is their favorite trick. Moreover, a trait of "Yawamochi" is including equal rice cakes. To produce the equal ones, it's said they took 3 years. It means that they had kept painstaking negotiations with the production machines manufacturers for a long time.

They were seriously trying to make the next hit.


Thus, in 2012 November, "Yawamochi Ice Cream" was out. Getting on the Japanese sweets fashion, it partly got popular. Later, it's kept growing up and has many flavors, not just the standards like Milk Cup and Warabi-mochi but also the limited ones. In 2016 September, they informed us the total number of sales has reached 100 million.

I believe you've got why I take "Yawamochi" not "Azuki Bars" now. Thank you for your attention.


※Photos by Imuraya Group Inc.

Imuraya Official Site




 

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