At this Japanese convenience store chain, big is an understatement.
It’s been a great few months for convenience store fans in Japan, with chains like 7-Eleven and Lawson upsizing a number of their products with special limited-time campaigns.
▼ Now, Family Mart is bringing joy to its customers with a “Giant All-Star Festival“.
With 14 items in the lineup, covering products like coffee, sweets and sandwiches, there’s something here for everyone. However, unlike 7-Eleven and Lawson, where products were upsized at no extra cost to customers, the products in Family Mart’s campaign come with higher price tags, so customers will want to be more discerning with their choices.
Here to help in that regard is our own discerning reporter P.K. Sanjun, who flatly says that the sandwiches, eclairs, and coffee jelly weren’t as impressive as he’d hoped. While they might resonate with other customers, for him the size upgrade wasn’t giant enough to make him do a double-take, which is the high bar he sets for campaigns like this one.
There were, however, two items in the range that did make P.K. do a double-take.
▼ The Big Financier…
▼ … and the Big Cookie.
These were two products P.K. didn’t mind paying extra for, as the sheer size of them made them seem like great value for money, even with the price increase. To give you an idea of how big the Big Financier is, P.K. says it’s about the size of an iPhone 16 Pro.
▼ P.K., modelling the financier phone.
Placing it next to the chain’s standard financier, P.K. had a hunch that the giant version was more than twice its size. Checking the website, he learned that the Big Financier is said to have 2.9 times the surface area of the standard version.
The official website also claims that the Big Cookie is about twice the weight of the chain’s regular chocolate macadamia cookie.
Sensing it was even larger, P.K. whipped out his scales to weigh both cookies. The regular chocolate macadamia cookie weighed in at 60 grams (2.1 ounces), while the large cookie was…
▼ …172 grams!
At almost three times the weight, the increase was way bigger than advertised, and with the price difference being 203 yen (US$1.27) for the regular version and 258 yen for the large, this was fantastic value for money.
▼ In Japan, giving customers more than they bargained for is colloquially known as gyaku sagi (“reverse fraud“).
▼ The giant financier was another good deal, with the regular being 150 yen and the large 238 yen.
Compared to everything else in the range, the financier and cookie are outstanding in terms of both size and cost-effectiveness. The upgrade didn’t affect the quality either, as both were as delicious as their smaller versions.
According to P.K., these are the two aces of the Giant All-Star Festival, but they’re only available in limited quantities so keep an eye out for them next time you pop in for a change of clothes during the rainy season.
Insert image: Family Mart Japan
Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
