Pocky Japanese Candy: History, Flavors and Which Box to Try First
October 26, 2026 · Exotic Snaxx Team · 4226 N Harlem Ave, Norridge
Pocky is a Japanese snack made by Ezaki Glico since 1966: a thin biscuit stick dipped in chocolate or another coating, left bare at one end so you can hold it without touching the coating. The name comes from pokkiri, the Japanese sound for a snap or crack. Five flavors are on the shelf in Norridge.
Pocky is one of the first things people point at when they walk into the store for the first time, usually because they already know the name from an anime convention, a K-pop fan edit, or the snack box a friend brought back from a trip. What most people do not know is how old the brand actually is, why it goes by a completely different name in parts of Europe, or which of the five flavors on our shelf is worth starting with. This guide covers all of it.
What exactly is Pocky made of?
Pocky is a coated biscuit stick: a thin, crunchy cracker stick dipped partway in chocolate or a flavored coating, with one bare end left uncoated so you have somewhere to hold it without getting your fingers sticky. That is the entire design, and it has not changed since Ezaki Glico first sold it in Japan in 1966. The original flavor was plain chocolate, followed by an almond-coated version in 1971 and strawberry in 1977, and the lineup has grown into dozens of flavors since. (Wikipedia, Pocky, retrieved 2026-10-26.)
The name itself is onomatopoeia. It comes from the Japanese word pokkiri, which is meant to imitate the snapping sound the stick makes when you bite into it. It is a small detail, but it explains why the name does not translate into anything in English the way a lot of snack names do; it was never a word, it was a sound effect first.
Who invented Pocky, and why is the box shaped the way it is?
Pocky was created by Ezaki Glico, a Japanese food company still based in Osaka, and the stick-in-a-box format was designed from the start to be easy to share: pull one stick out, pass the box along, nobody has to touch the chocolate end that someone else already had in their mouth. In Japan the snack is popular enough with teenagers that it is commonly served at bars alongside a glass of ice water or milk, the same way you might set out pretzels. By 2020, Pocky had grown large enough that Guinness World Records certified it as the world's best-selling chocolate-coated biscuit brand, built on more than $500 million in sales in a single year. (Wikipedia, Pocky, retrieved 2026-10-26.) November 11 is celebrated as Pocky & Pretz Day in Japan and several other countries, because the date, 11/11, looks like four Pocky sticks lined up.
Why is Pocky called "Mikado" in some countries?
In most of Europe, including France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Spain and the UK, the exact same snack is licensed to Mondelez International and sold under the name Mikado instead of Pocky. The name comes from Mikado, a classic pick-up-sticks game played with thin, long sticks, which is where the branding idea came from. (Wikipedia, Pocky, retrieved 2026-10-26.) It also went by a third name, Rocky, in Malaysia for roughly five decades before being rebranded back to Pocky in 2014. None of these are competitors or knockoffs; they are the identical product under a different regional license.
What is the difference between Pocky and Pretz?
Pretz is Pocky's savory sibling, made by the same company, using the same biscuit stick, just without the chocolate or sweet coating. Pretz flavors run toward savory, think tomato, pizza and salad, alongside a few sweet exceptions like cocoa and French toast. If Pocky is the dessert version of the stick, Pretz is the snack-aisle version, and the two sit next to each other on Glico's own shelves in Japan the same way they do in ours.
Which Pocky flavors can you buy in Chicago right now?
Five flavors are currently on the shelf, every one of them $4.99, read from the live product pages on 2026-10-26.
| Flavor | Origin | Notes | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cookies and Cream | Japan | Store bestseller | $4.99 |
| Crunchy Strawberry | Japan | Adds a crisp crunch layer under the strawberry coating | $4.99 |
| Almond Crush | Japan | Closest to the 1971 original almond variant | $4.99 |
| Pistachio Crush | Japan | Newer flavor, less sweet than the chocolate line | $4.99 |
| Blueberry | Korea | Korean-market flavor, tarter than the Japanese fruit coatings | $4.99 |
All five are in both the Japan collection, which carries 295 SKUs total and is the biggest single-country shelf in the store, and the cookies and biscuits collection, where Pocky sits alongside other coated-biscuit snacks if that texture is what you are actually shopping for. Pocky and Meiji lead the Japan shelf by volume.
Which Pocky flavor should you try first?
Cookies and Cream, our bestseller, is the easiest entry point: it reads as familiar, closer to a dessert cookie than an unfamiliar Japanese flavor, so it rarely surprises anyone. From there, Crunchy Strawberry is the move if you want the closest thing to the original strawberry Pocky from 1977, with an added crunch layer most people have not tried. Almond Crush is the truest callback to the second flavor Glico ever released, back in 1971, and it tastes noticeably nuttier and less sweet than the fruit-coated options. Save Blueberry for last, since it is the Korean formulation rather than the Japanese one and tastes noticeably tarter, which lands better once you have a baseline for the sweeter Japanese coatings.
How do you eat Pocky properly?
There is no wrong way, but the intended way is to hold the bare end and eat from the coated tip down, which is why the stick is designed asymmetrically in the first place. In Japan it is common to dunk the tip in a drink, coffee, milk or even melted ice cream, the same way you might dunk a cookie. A box is meant to be shared stick by stick rather than eaten all at once by one person, which is part of why it shows up constantly at parties, in office breakrooms and at izakaya bars across Japan.
How is Pocky sold and priced in the US compared to Japan?
In Japan, Pocky is sold in small, inexpensive boxes meant for grabbing on the way out of a convenience store, often multiple boxes to a bundle. The versions imported into the US, including everything on our shelf, come in the same single-box format at $4.99 each, priced for the cost of importing a Japanese or Korean product rather than a domestically produced one. That price gap is the same story as most of what we carry: the snack itself is not expensive to make, getting it here is what adds the cost, which is also why flavors rotate in and out depending on what import runs are currently worth bringing over.
Read next
For where Pocky ranks against the rest of the shelf, read Japanese Snacks Tier List: What to Actually Buy First. If daifuku and mochi cubes are also on your list, What Is Mochi? covers the other end of the Japan shelf.
All five Pocky flavors are on the shelf at Exotic Snaxx, 4226 N Harlem Ave #101, Norridge, IL 60706, inside Harlem Irving Plaza. Order online from the Japan collection for nationwide shipping, or pick your flavor by hand in person.
Sources: Wikipedia, "Pocky", retrieved 2026-10-26, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocky. Product prices, flavors and collection count read from exoticsnaxxshop.com product and collection pages on 2026-10-26.
Questions people actually ask
When was Pocky invented?
Pocky was first sold in Japan in 1966 by the Ezaki Glico food company, starting with a plain chocolate-coated biscuit stick. An almond-coated version followed in 1971 and strawberry in 1977, and the lineup has since grown into dozens of flavors sold across Asia, Europe and North America.
What does the name Pocky mean?
Pocky comes from the Japanese onomatopoeic word pokkiri, which imitates the cracking or snapping sound the biscuit stick makes when you bite into it. It is a sound-effect name rather than a translated word, similar to how some English snack names are built around texture rather than meaning.
Why is Pocky sold as Mikado in Europe?
In much of Europe, Pocky is produced under license by Mondelez International and sold under the name Mikado, after the classic pick-up-sticks game played with thin wooden sticks. It is the identical snack, just licensed and branded differently for that region, not a separate competing product.
What is the difference between Pocky and Pretz?
Pocky and Pretz are both biscuit sticks made by Ezaki Glico, but Pocky is coated in chocolate or a sweet flavor while Pretz is left uncoated and leans savory, with flavors like tomato, pizza and salad alongside a few sweet exceptions such as cocoa and French toast.
Where can I buy Pocky near Chicago?
Exotic Snaxx at 4226 N Harlem Ave #101 in Norridge, inside Harlem Irving Plaza, stocks five Pocky flavors including Cookies and Cream, Crunchy Strawberry and the Korean Blueberry variant, all at $4.99 a box. Order online from the Japan collection for nationwide shipping, or shop the shelf in person.
