Generative AI Invents Conbini Snacks
And Lawson makes tasty ramen.
AI is (probably) inventing conbini snacks.
Kanro, the gummy maker, has launched a series called “Imaginary Fruit,” whereby they concoct elaborate stories about nonexistent fruit, which they then turn into gummy candy.
This picture halted my scrolling while browsing 7-11’s new items.
I had never seen a fruit like it! Its name? Uchacha.
I figured it was some obscure tropical fruit from the Philippines or some other Pacific island nation. But when I Googled “Uchacha,” the only thing that came up was a Kanro press release explaining the candy. Here is a ChatGPT translation:
Grows in tropical rainforests near the equator. Its distinctive feature is that the texture of the fruit skin differs between the top and bottom, with angular structures to withstand heavy rain like squalls. The fruit stores abundant gas with a rich aroma to facilitate its own ripening, growing to about 20cm in size within approximately two months of flowering. During rare breaks in the rain, mature fruits float about 5-6m above the ground, swaying and drifting through the jungle. - This fruit is fictional.
They had me going until “This fruit is fictional.” The press release closed by explaining this is the second fake fruit in their imaginary fruit campaign.
The stories play out on a Twitter feed dubbed Kusokajitsu Lab (Imaginary Fruit Lab). A small team of researchers and investigators journey into wilderness in search of unknown fruit.
They discovered Uchacha after spotting a monkey jumping through the jungle, presumably fetching the fruit, which somehow flies through the air.
The team named it “Hilarēs Uchacha” of the Sanctoideae family and Ucha genus.
But let’s get real. This is a Midjourney prompt with a ChatGPT backstory. And that backstory could use some work. “The fruit stores abundant gas with a rich aroma to facilitate its own ripening” is hardly appetizing. It sounds like it’s hotboxing farts until it’s soft and sweet.
The conbini has toyed with robots and AI for years, principally as a solution to the chronic labor shortage. FamilyMart’s latest trial is a cleaning robot that can instruct employees to replenish items.
I am more hopeful about generative AI conbini snacks than robots replacing management and workers. Conbini items are a hotbed of innovation. The same technology curing intractable diseases can surely come up with great new nikuman and onigiri flavors.
Item of the Week
Lawson has partnered with a Yokohama ramen shop called 家系総本山 吉村家 (maybe pronounced “Ieke Souhonzan Yoshimuraya”) on a special-edition instant ramen. The slab of chashu, thick noodles, and rich broth suggest this is very tasty.
Apparently, Ieke is a style of ramen developed by the founder of this shop, Minoru Yoshimura. It’s a pork and chicken-based broth with soy sauce seasoning and thick noodles. Since Yoshimura founded the shop in 1974, over one-thousand shops have opened selling the same style of ramen.
The shop’s actual ramen looks like a belly-full. Yoshomura-san does not hold back on the pork fat. That soup looks slipperier than Mobil 1 fully synthetic oil. Pro tip: order a side of rice and eat it first to soak up the fat. Otherwise, you’re going to be going off like field artillery.
From the Dumpster
7-11 has released a ham and macaroni salad sandwich. Of course, it’s covered in mayonnaise. Japan has a terrible habit of putting weird stuff in bread, such as fruit with whipped cream and yakisoba. But this is a new low.
The master craftsman who cooked this up must have been three Strong Zeroes deep into a very long workday. It looks like an early-twenties bachelor blindly scavenged to sustain his 16-hour gaming session.
I’ve been watching the HBO series OZ, a dark drama set in a maximum security prison, and I’m confident offering this to an inmate would get you a cartoon phallus branded onto your butt cheek.
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