Food Culture

Haha... If my mom knows I'm still blogging instead of getting my sorry arse out of the house to shop, she'll probably nag at me. I need a pair of jeans.

There was an interesting article on food in my bro's copy of Time magazine so I thought I'd just laze my afternoon away reading that. What really caught me was the article on the many different flavours Maggi actually produces for different countries. By different flavours, I meant a singular product with subtle differences in tastes, intended for sale in different countries.

Of course, I have suspected the food industry of so-called "localising" their products. It was evident when I went Japan. Pocky sticks there are delicious; the biscuits are lighter and crunchier compared to the Thai import we get from NTUC. Qoo is less sweet in Japan (more suited to my taste) than the Singapore version (no longer available in the S'pore market). And if you go to Candy Empire at Vivo City, the KitKat's from Australia, better tasting than the Thai import you get from NTUC. Even Milo from Nestle Australia tastes different from, again, the Thai import.

Sure you have to pay a higher price for the Australian or Japanese variants, but it's value for money if you can afford to pay for it. Anyway, it's sad we do not have the Singapore variant for many of the products. Guess it's just not economical to localise anything for a small country. After all, we are slowly acclimatising to the Thai taste so why bother...