Japanese Snack Maker Calbee Used Kintsugi To Solve A Supply Chain Crisis

Kintsugi - the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer, treating the breakage and repair as a beautiful part of the object's history rather than something to disguise.

The Great Japanese Naphtha Shortage (2026)

For those of you not living in Japan, you're probably unaware of an amazing Marketing strategy that recently took shape here by the company Calbee – perhaps the best Marketing team decision I’ve seen so far this year. 

To start though, first let me explain the situation.

Due to the unfortunate events occurring recently in the Middle East, there has been severe disruptions in the oil and petroleum product market world-wide. Some countries are better insulated from these kinds of disruptions than others, but unfortunately for Japan we are not. And gasoline isn’t what I'm talking about.

I’m talking about a shortage in Japan of the petroleum product, Naphtha. This shortage has reduced the ability for some product manufacturers in Japan to produce their normal product packaging with their typical bright coloring due to rising Naphtha costs, and as a result -- the situation has created huge buzz domestically.

What Exactly Is Naphtha?

Lets pretend for a moment that I knew what Naphtha was before researching the situation.

Naphtha, serves as the foundational element for basic chemicals like ethylene, propylene, and butadiene and is key to industrial printing. Industrial printing requires chemical solvents and resins to act as a "glue" so colors can bond to plastic snack bags. These solvents are manufactured using Naphtha.

So when geopolitical tensions in the Middle East led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices soared and Japan's supply of imported naphtha was severely disrupted.

Why? 

Well Japan relies on the Middle East for roughly 40% of its Naphtha, leading to a major domestic chemical crisis. And Japan's supply chain is deeply exposed because over 80% of its total naphtha relies on the Middle East.

The Calbee Switch to Black & White

The Japanese snack maker Calbee is the dominant snack manufacturer in the country of Japan, and they specialize in agricultural-focused snacks like their popular salted potato chips, crunchy Jagariko potato sticks, and Kappa Ebisen shrimp crackers. They’re a household name with control of an estimated 70% of the domestic potato chip market. Full disclosure, my family contributes to their market share every month, probably to the tune of 20,000 JPY per month, they’re just that good.

When this Naphtha shortage disrupted their packaging supply chain, their ink became scarce and expensive, and Calbee had a major decision to make:

Status Quote w/ Price Hikes: Maintain the current complex, multi-colored designs for their bags and risk production halts due to ink shortages, and raise costs to Japanese consumers.

Bold Transparency: Drastically simplify the design of their packages down to a two-ink monochrome design (black and white). This would minimize the chemical consumption and allow the company to conserve their limited supplies, keep factories moving and maintain current prices.

Calbee’s Choice: Bold Transparency

Calbee chose Bold Transparency and it turned out to be a smashing success.

Original Calbee Big Bag Packaging 

New Monochrome Black & White Calbee Big Bag Packaging

But, this choice came with a lot of considerations. To transition to the monochrome packaging, Calbee slashed their printing process from an average of six colors down to just two, black and white. Here's a breakdown of what they did:

• Colorful Backgrounds Gone: Their trademark bright backdrops - such as the bold red for Kappa Ebisen, vibrant orange for Consommé Punch, and bright yellow with green accents for Nori Shio (seaweed salt). They were replaced by a plain, colorless silver wrapper.
• Potato Mascot Gone: Calbee entirely removed their mascot often called Potemaru. The hat-wearing potato man that is prominent on their products.
• Photo Imagery Gone: High-resolution, full-color photos of the actual snacks were also taken off their bags.
• Simplified Imagery: Instead of hi-rez photos, the company pivoted to simple line art. Almost like the lines of a tattoo before shading. 
• Full Transparency: Calbee added a prominent text label on the bags reading "package to save oil-related materials" or "oil-saving package" so consumers would immediately understand the drastically changed look.

Affected Products:

• Potato Chips Nori Shio (Salt and Seaweed)
• Potato Chips Lightly Salted (Usushio Aji)
• Potato Chips Consommé Double Punch
• Potato Chips Consommé Punch
• Kataage Potato (Hard-Fried Chips)
• Kappa Ebisen (Shrimp Chips)
• Sapporo Potato
• Potato Deluxe
• Pizza Potato
• Jagariko
• Jagabee
• Frugra (Fruit Granola)
• Frugra Low Sugar
• Granola

The Debut of Monochrome Packages

The debut of Calbee's monochrome bags on shelves sparked a widespread discussion within Japan, which again started with surprise but support quickly followed. 

More Corporate Transparency / Less Price Gouging: Another thing that quickly occurred was appreciated for the corporation being transparent with its labeling. Also, the fact that they did NOT use this event to jack up prices. This is something as an American I’m super frustrated with. I’ve grown up with the frustration of over increasing prices, shrinkflation. 

So unlike other situations where prices were just jacked up on the consumer, Calbee took a different route, and have been very highly praised for this more consumer friendly approach. I’m looking at you Snickers! I’m looking at you McDonalds!

Initial Confusion, Followed by Applause: Because people are often accustomed to “at a glance" shopping, many consumers were not finding their Calbee products as quickly as normal, or assuming they were out. But this quickly changed to surprise when the shiny silver bags were ultimately discovered on shelves. I for one can attest to this, when I first saw these bags, I did a double take. I knew the name, I knew the brand, but never saw these shiny bags before. But you know what my reaction was within just a few seconds? “Oh that’s awesome!”. And I’m NOT the only one, as these snack bags have gone viral in Japan.

The Viral Impact of Solid Marketing: The unusual sight of portions of the snack aisles drained of color quickly went viral. Next followed a Social media buzz with people posting about these unusual bags when they find them. And now you'll even find that consumers are treating these unusual bags almost like a blank canvas. Check out some of these User Generated designs people are drawing right on the bags themselves:

Source:  中田譲治

Source: 琴島もとき@C108(土)東ケ47a

Emergent Secondary Market: Limited Novelty Collecting

Japan is also very much a collector society. Whether it’s Pokémon cards, Magic the Gathering or even as is the case here, limited edition products - they all do well here in Japan. Limited-run food packaging has been known here to become a collectors item and these monochrome packages will be no different. 

Calbee has explicitly stated that it has not yet decided on a specific end date for the monochrome packaging. Because the change is a direct response to global geopolitical instability, the company expects the black-and-white bags to remain on store shelves until the Middle East supply lines and international markets are fully operational and stable again.

But remember dear readers, all good things end. So while I very much enjoy seeing (and buying) these awesome packages and snacks, my advice to the Japanese consumer is, get 'em while you still can!

Calbee Took The Kintsugi Approach

While many marketing teams out there continue to make huge mistakes and misunderstand their customer, Calbee chose transparency and honesty, and respect for their customer. The team was up front, explained the change and also did not try to mask the issue but instead leaned in.

Being a Japanese company, I’m not completely surprised by what Calbee did here and I love it. They in some ways took a Kintsugi approach to this situation. For those of you not familiar with Kintsugi, here is a quick breakdown:

Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery withi gold or silver lacquer, treating the breakage and repair as a beautiful part of the object's history rather than something to disguise. 

Calbee was transparent, up-front, did not try to mask this issue, they embraced it. They made it a thing of beauty. All the while they stood side-by-side with their consumer.

But, would you do the same? 

Take The Calbee Quiz

Wrap Up - Be More Like Calbee

I personally hope that this huge win for Calbee in Japan generates buzz around the world and in particular, the inner circles of Western marketing firms. 

Western companies should consider this different style of approach to crisis management that Calbee embraced and used to win almost universal consumer favor and praise.

Here are my big-three takeaways:

1. Being honest with your customer base is always the best approach. 
2. Price increases are not consumer friendly and creates resentment. 
3. Don’t hide from your flaws, embrace them but work with your customers to make them better.

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