is a Japanese snack food made by Meiji Seika since 1979. It comes in a package with two compartments. One side has biscuit sticks (which can be sometimes called cracker sticks), the other side has chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, or yogurt flavored frosting used for dipping. The sticks themselves may also be flavored. Some Yan Yan products are sold in rectangular containers with 9 sticks and dip. There is also a new version which includes two flavored dips.[1]
In 1982, British company KP Snacks began licensing Yan Yan for UK markets releasing it under the name Choc Dips.[2]
The sticks were once plain, but recently Meiji has placed pictures of various animals on them with quotes relating to that animal. The quotes are in English, but often appear unorthodox to native English speakers. Examples of these animal quotes include:
Some of the animal-related quotes relate not to facts about the animals, but instead to the noise the animal makes, which is printed in a Japanese-influenced English dialect. For example:
There are also two "golden" non-animal quotes: Golden Egg and Golden Log.
Yan Yan comes in a variety of flavors. This includes vanilla sticks with chocolate, strawberry, mango, vanilla cream, and the newest, hazelnut, or chocolate sticks with vanilla cream.
Pocky is a similar Japanese snack which includes thinner sticks pre-dipped in cream. The cream comes in a much wider variety of flavors such as green tea cream or honey-flavored cream. Yan Yan is dipped by the consumer themselves, and comes in a more limited assortment of flavors. Meiji also produces another snack called Hello Panda. It is a panda-shaped biscuit with either chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, or matcha (green tea) flavored fillings. Yan Yan is also similar to the American snack Dunk-a-roos.[3]
Nutella has a similar snack called "Nutella & Go" that includes breadsticks or pretzels for dipping into their signature hazelnut spread.[4] It has similar packaging to Yan Yan, but Yan Yan is significantly taller while Nutella & Go is wider.