Haitai Confectionery is debuting the first fruit flavor for its thinnest stick snack, Pocky Gukse (Ultra-Thin): melon. While the original lineup has offered flavors like fruit, nuts, and cheese, this marks the first time—across Korea and Japan—that the Ultra-Thin stick swaps chocolate for fruit.
The Ultra-Thin sticks are about 40% slimmer than the originals, which makes them more fragile and made it hard to replace the viscous chocolate coating. Haitai overcame that challenge by localizing the necessary technology and successfully developed a fruit-flavored Ultra-Thin stick. The company plans to start with melon and then broaden the Pocky Gukse lineup, which has been chocolate-heavy until now.
The first fruit Ultra-Thin stick uses melons from Naju in South Jeolla Province, Korea’s largest melon-growing region, so it delivers an intense sweet aroma and flavor. Instead of artificial coloring, the product uses matcha to preserve the melon’s subtle pale green hue—so it looks as delightfully sweet as it tastes. To date, only Korea and Japan (which has a Yubari melon flavor) sell melon-flavored stick snacks, adding to this release’s rarity.
The star is the Ultra-Thin stick itself. Korea’s only 3mm-thick stick gets a generous coat of melon cream to deliver a crisp, sweet bite. Because the stick is slimmer, the exterior cream coating is over 30% heavier than on the original, so each bite emphasizes the creamy, fruity sweetness.
This follows the success of Japan’s Yubari Melon Pocky: Haitai focused on premium ingredients from famed melon regions and shared development know-how to nail the ideal cream-to-stick balance. With Haitai’s proprietary techniques, they’ve packed locally grown Naju melon into the Ultra-Thin stick, adding a true local-premium touch.
Notably, this is the first Pocky product to land in Olive Young. Haitai will debut it at the Myeong-dong shop, a hotspot for international visitors, and expand from there. Because the melon Gukse will only be sold in Korea, it’s poised to become a sought-after K-snack souvenir.
