"The Iran War Is Taking the Color Out of Japan’s Best-Known Snack Bags"

Text and photo from The New York Times online, 5/13/26.

The food giant Calbee said shortages of naphtha, a crude-oil derivative used in inks, were forcing it to switch to black-and-white packaging for its salty products.

The Iran war has wreaked havoc on global supply chains, caused a spike in oil prices and scrambled international trade.

Now it is coming for potato chips.

The Japanese food giant Calbee said on Tuesday that it would temporarily abandon its brightly colored plastic snack bags in favor of black-and-white wrapping because of “instability affecting certain raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.”

The company said in a statement that the measure was meant to “help maintain a stable supply of products,” adding that it would not affect the quality of the snacks.

Read the whole story: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/world/asia/calbee-japan-bags-iran-war.html

(More) Potato Chip Baseball Cards - 2025 Second Series

We bought three packs and got 6 cards, none of which were Hanshin Tigers... Hopefully we will have better luck next time. Especially since, as of the time of this post, the Tigers are at M4, or Magic 4. This means when the Tigers win 4 more games they will be the Central League Champs!

See also: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2025/07/where-to-get-baseball-cards-in-japan.html

Where to get baseball cards in Japan? Forget the bubblegum, think potato chips and kaki no tane... (and updated 7/14/25)

When I was growing up in America, I would often buy baseball cards that came with a stick (and scent) of bubblegum. But here in Japan, you can get baseball cards when you buy a certain brand of potato chips and a certain brand of kaki no tane (small, crescent-shaped rice crackers flavored with soy sauce and chili). Here are a couple of recent purchases...

I bought 3 small packs of chips at my neighborhood convenience store in Kadoma-shi. You get two cards per pack. Unfortunately I didn't get any Hanshin Tigers player cards this time.

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I found these kaki no tane at a convenience store in Kyoto. I had never seen these before. You get one card per pack. I was lucky to get one Hanshin Tigers player card, Nakano Takumu. My daughter and I enjoy opening up the packs and seeing which players we got, and then eating the snacks. Go Tigers!

UPDATE! 7/14/25:

Recently when we bought potato chips we got a "lucky card." We sent it in the the company and received a small folder to keep our cards in good condition.