The differences between regional dialects across Vietnam is a fascinating field of research that can spawn days of discussion, but no other pairs of words has the power to mystify the internet like the dichotomy between bimbim and snack, both used in the Vietnamese language to describe bags of crackers made of rice, corn, or wheat flours. In today’s Snack Attack feature, Saigoneer is digging into the surprisingly recent history of why northern Vietnamese use the term “bimbim” while it has always been “snack” in Saigon and southern provinces.
From glass noodles to bimbim
Today, if one were to hit the streets of Hanoi and head to the nearest tạp hóa asking for “bimbim,” the most likely response from the owner would be “what kind?” because it is now recognized in the northern dialect as a generic term to describe all types of crunchy crackers coated in flavor powders, sweet or savory. There is, however, one specific brand of cream-filled cookie stick called Bimbim, produced by the Haiha-Kotobuki confectionery company, that holds the key to today’s etymological discovery.
Snacks are an indispensable part of tạp hóa. Photo by Alberto Prieto.
This sweet Bimbim snack would appear foreign to most Vietnamese adults today, as they likely grew up with a savory version called Snack Tôm Bimbim, the first widely known packaged chip in northern Vietnam, manufactured by none other than Haiha-Kotobuki.
Before becoming the established confectionery brand today, the company had its start as a state-run glass noodles workshop. In December 1960, under the directive of the northern government, Xưởng miến Hoàng Mai was founded to diversify the local food supply by producing glass noodles from mung beans.
Across the 1960s, the facility also developed soy sauce and corn starch until 1966, when it was turned into the Hải Hà Factory for Experimental Foods, and worked on other edible products like malt sugar, bouillon cubes, and fermented soy beans. In 1970, it took over the candy facility of Hải Châu and became the Hải Hà Food Factory. After reunification in 1992, the entity was officially registered as HAIHACO, a confectionery enterprise, until 1993, when it entered the Haiha-Kotobuki joint venture with a Japanese F&B firm, based at 25 Trương Định in Hanoi.
One of the earliest packaged snacks in the north.
Haiha-Kotobuki's only remaining snack with the Bimbim brand.
The new company made use of Hải Hà’s established brand recognition in the local market and Japanese production technologies. One of their new products that hit Hanoi was Bimbim shrimp-flavored crackers. “When it came time to make a snack, [we] thought about how to name it,” Nguyễn Thị Lệ Thủy, then-CEO of Haiha-Kotobuki, shared in the company’s archive footage. “I said: ‘Children love automobiles, they like to press on the horn so it beeps, so we should use the name Bimbim.”
Following the same creative direction, Bimbim’s earliest television commercials in the 1990s featured cars that made noise. This association has mostly faded today, as the snack brand underwent genericization. Bimbim was the first packaged cracker in the north, made a mark in the culture, and now all snacks are called “bimbim.”
Vinabico and the legendary green crab snack
If you have ever engaged in cyber fights on whether “bimbim” or “snack” is the right way to call these bags of 80% air, 10% monosodium glutamate, and 10% crunch, you might be stunned to learn that their origin stories are almost identical. Southern Vietnamese, especially Saigoneers, all refer to these as “snack.” Of course, with certain degrees of Vietnamese bastardization, we’ll also accept bánh snack, xì nách, sờ nách, or just simply nách.
Illustration by Vent Hoang.
How this came to be was directly linked to the introduction of the legendary green bag of crab-shaped rice crackers known simply amongst snack disciples as “Snack Cua,” produced by local company Vinabico.
Vinabico was a confectionery enterprise founded in 1974, widely recognized by a logo featuring a swan. It was nationalized in 1978. In 1993, the company entered a joint venture with Japanese firm Kotobuki, similar to that of Hải Hà.
Employing rice flour and a new technology to make durable aluminum wrappers, it launched the first snack product in the southern market called “Bánh Snack Cua” in the same year. Each piece was made of rice and corn starches, puffed into the shape of a crab complete with two pincers, and tossed in an umami flavor powder. The bag was brightly colored using a palette of turquoise and red. An orange boiled crab was featured at the bottom. The word “snack” in red was the most prominent in the center of the packaging, so it has stuck around in the collective consciousness as the common term to refer to packaged snacks.
A newspaper ad promoting Snack Cua when it first launched in the 1990s. Image via Instagram user nikoskhanh2022.
The original packaging of Snack Cua.
In 2003, Vinabico bought out the shares of Kotobuki and performed well in the confectionery market across the 2000s. Still, in 2012, Kinh Đô took over the control of the company with 51% of its shares and eventually bought it out. In 2015, Vinabico ceased to exist, absorbed completely into Kinh Đô. Snack Cua fell out of the popularity race during this period due to tough competition from local and foreign brands, but has since resurfaced under the Kinh Đô umbrella, albeit with a modified package design.
Oishi, the dark horse from the East
Much of the discourse surrounding bimbim versus snack tends to focus on Saigon and Hanoi, as they have always been the biggest markets of consumer goods in Vietnam. There exists, however, another contender in the race: Oishi. If you grew up outside of the two biggest metropolises, especially in more rural areas in Central Vietnam or the Mekong Delta, it’s likely that you’ve been calling packaged snacks “oishi.”
“Oishi” is a Japanese word meaning tasty, so it’s natural to assume that the brand hailed from Japan, yet few know that this household name today had origins in the Philippines.
Some of Oishi's most iconic snacks of our childhood.
In 1974, Carlos Chan, a Filipino entrepreneur of Chinese descent launched the Oishi branch in the Philippines, putting snack foods produced using Japanese technologies in the national market. Oishi expanded to China in the late 20th century and, in 1997, reached Vietnam for the first time. Vietnam has long regarded Japanese-made products as superior, so the name Oishi serendipitously was well-received by local snackers.
Oishi strategically made a move to enter the market via small-scale retailers like mom-and-pop shops and public school canteens, entrancing Vietnamese children one salty finger at a time. It worked, and today Oishi remains one of the country’s most prevalent snacks, especially in the countryside and second-tier municipalities, whose residents will use the term “oishi” to refer to packaged snacks.
