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The story
Meiji has announced it will raise prices on a total of 14 products, including “Kinoko no Yama” and “Takenoko no Sato,” starting in October. The reason is soaring costs for matcha, packaging materials, and fuel, with shipping prices rising 3-21%. On 5ch, alongside the classic “Team Kinoko vs. Team Takenoko” debate, users also shared their sense of just how much cheap candy prices have climbed.
On the 18th, Meiji announced it will raise prices on a total of 14 beverage and confectionery products, including “Kinoko no Yama” and “Takenoko no Sato.” The price increase, based on shipping prices, ranges from 3% to 21%. The company is passing on rising procurement costs for packaging materials, logistics, and other factors.
Starting in October, prices will rise on three beverage products — “Tsujiri Koi Matcha Latte,” “Tsujiri Matcha Latte,” and “Tsujiri Hojicha Latte” — with shipping prices increasing 16-21%. In November, a total of 11 chocolate and snack products, including Kinoko no Yama, Takenoko no Sato, “Garbo Chocolate Pouch,” and “Karl Cheese Flavor,” will see price increases of 3-8%.
While the market price of cacao beans, the raw material for chocolate, has stabilized, the price of matcha has soared. Palm oil and fuel costs have also surged, and the company stated that “it has become difficult to continue sales at current prices.”
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
It's 'listening,' not 'hearing'
Except for ratites and some Galliformes/Anseriformes, birds don't have a 'Kinoko no Yama' (a cheeky stand-in for the actual trivia — most birds lack a penis). Just some trivia for ya
Is it actually good…?
Kinoko no Yama is good
Takenoko no Sato's the tasty one though
I prefer Kinoko no Yama too.
Was Team Takenoko back in school, but now I'm fully Team Kinoko
Was Team Takenoko as a kid.
Switched to Kinoko once I started drinking coffee
(;゚Д゚) I've done the potato chips and Kappa Ebisen ones.
Haven't drawn the BIG potato chips one yet.
Gotta hurry up before it goes soggy from humidity
Just let go of that 'I wanna buy it cheap' urge lol
We're talking about the price of labor here too, right?
Who on earth is buying this stuff?
(;゚Д゚) People who like their little indulgences will buy them no matter what~
Look at Figma and Nendoroid figures selling like crazy even at like double their old prices…
Feel like it used to be around 120 yen.
With another hike coming, is it gonna break 200 yen?
At a convenience store a box'll run about 280 yen
Might as well be charging more for air at this point.
And they'll probably still keep it labeled 'quasi-chocolate' even after the price hike (a lower-grade JAS category with less cacao than real chocolate)
Question: Which is better, Kinoko no Yama or Takenoko no Sato? Answer in under 200 characters.
Answer: Takenoko no Sato wins. The savory cookie and the chocolate blend together beautifully, and the texture is really satisfying. That said, the cracker fans of Kinoko no Yama shouldn't be underestimated either. In the end it's a matter of taste, but I'll cast my vote for Takenoko no Sato. (quoted verbatim)
You can't review something you've never even eaten
Is the reason naphtha?
'Heno-koko-no…' (a nonsense rhyme riffing on Kinoko/Takenoko) — anyway, it's the fuel cost hike
Cacao's through the roof so they're probably mixing in who-knows-what.
Nothing but low-quality, overpriced stuff out there now.
Feel bad for kids today.
Maybe they cut the sugar or switched to cheaper ingredients?
Chocolate's inherently kind of bitter to begin with anyway
Background and Key Points
The rivalry behind this story is a genuine institution in Japan: Kinoko no Yama (mushroom-shaped, chocolate cap on a cracker stem) and Takenoko no Sato (bamboo-shoot-shaped, cookie base under chocolate) have been sold by Meiji since the 1970s, and “Team Kinoko vs. Team Takenoko” is a running national debate complete with polls, merchandise, and mock elections. Both are legally classified as “quasi-chocolate” (準チョコレート) under Japan’s JAS standards, a category with lower cacao-content requirements than real chocolate, which is why they’ve historically stayed cheap. This hike sits inside a broader wave of cost-push inflation that has been reshaping Japanese snack aisles since the weak yen made imported cacao, palm oil, and packaging materials more expensive.
The thread didn’t really argue about the price increase itself, since most posters treated it as unavoidable; the actual split was the old Kinoko-vs-Takenoko loyalty question, including several users describing switching sides as adults, plus a side debate over whether people will simply keep buying at higher prices regardless (with figure-collecting compared as a parallel indulgence market).
What’s easy to miss is that matcha, singled out in the announcement, mainly hits the Tsujiri latte drinks (16–21% increases), not Kinoko/Takenoko themselves, which are driven up by packaging, logistics, and palm oil instead. Also unmentioned in the thread: Japan’s matcha price surge is largely demand-driven, fueled by a global matcha-latte boom and inbound tourism straining limited tencha (shade-grown tea leaf) production — a supply squeeze from outside Japan, not a domestic cost issue.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Price Hike] Meiji: “Kinoko no Yama” and “Takenoko no Sato” — Packaging Materials and Other Costs Soar.”
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