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“Returned Pokémon Bread,” a renewed version of Pokémon Bread first launched in 1999, sold more than 22.1 million units within 2 1/2 months of its launch. It became the biggest hit product of the first half of the year, drawing not only its main targets, people born in the 1980s and 1990s, but also children who enjoy the animation and people trying to get the bread out of curiosity and a desire to show it off, leading to open-run lines at convenience stores and supermarkets. Detailed requests from customers who accurately remembered the taste, shape and product name from 23 years earlier and asked for the bread to be relaunched became the trigger for the launch. While faithfully recreating the old taste, the texture of the bread and the design of the stickers were improved to suit the tastes of today’s consumers. Considering Pokémon enthusiasts, details and lore from the animation and games were borrowed for the product design to preserve consistency with the original works. To respond to the supply shortage, existing products were discontinued or products in new categories were launched to secure additional production volume.

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“You came all the way here looking for Pokémon Bread!”

If seeing Professor Oak’s face in [Figure 1] brings to mind voice actor Koo Ja-hyoung’s voice saying, “What is today’s Pokémon?” there is a good chance you were born in the 1980s or 1990s and grew up watching the Pokémon animation. For those born in the 1980s and 1990s, Pokémon was a phenomenon. Introduced in South Korea in 1999 as an animation, it boasted a peak viewership rating of 41.4% and an average viewership rating of 33%. As games and movies based on Pokémon IP (intellectual property) also succeeded, children and students at the time had at least one or two items with Pokémon on them, such as bags or pencil cases.

In particular, Shani’s “Pokémon Bread,” which contained 151 Pokémon stickers, was launched in 1999 and became hugely popular. School desks, desk pads and the like were covered with Pokémon stickers. Pokémon Bread was also relatively inexpensive, allowing children to easily afford it and collect the stickers. Because the stickers were the biggest contributor to its popularity, it was common for people to throw away the bread and take only the stickers. At the time, in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, such food waste by children even came to be portrayed as a social problem. In this way, Pokémon Bread was children’s “must-have item” and a social phenomenon in itself. But as time passed, Pokémon Bread was gradually forgotten. That was because Pokémon characters were no longer as popular as before, and the main consumer base had grown up and naturally moved on to other foods and forms of play.



On Feb. 24, 2022, SPC Samlip1 1Shani acquired Samlip and launched SPC Group in 2004. 닫기 , a confectionery company, relaunched Pokémon Bread from 1999 under the name “Returned Pokémon Bread” after 23 years. In particular, Gastly Bread and Team Rocket Bread, the 2 most popular products at the time, were renewed as “Returned Gastly Choco Cake” and “Returned Team Rocket Choco Roll.” These familiar new products are taking “kidults” in 2022 on a trip down memory lane, earning reviews that they faithfully recreated “that taste from back then.” The Ttibuseal (peel-and-stick sticker), an essential part of Pokémon Bread, also remained the same. As in 1999, the stickers were made with 151 early Pokémon, and the fun of collecting Ttibuseal was enhanced through strategies such as creating 2 designs for especially popular Pokémon or limiting their quantities.

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