Product information
About
Thin, dry pretzel sticks in a savoury tomato seasoning. This is the biscuit Pocky is made from, before the chocolate goes on. Expect tomato pasta sauce or pizza rather than fresh tomato: salt and acidity first, with the tomato behind them. If you want something savoury to pick at rather than a sweet biscuit, this is the one.
On the pack: トマトプリッツ (tomato purittsu). Worth checking against the box you remember, because the size has changed.
What you're getting
- What it actually tastes of: not much like a fresh tomato, and Japanese buyers have been saying so cheerfully for twenty years. The nearest thing is a tomato pasta sauce or a pizza base.
- Texture: a light, dry snap. Thin sticks that break cleanly rather than crunch hard, and they melt away quickly.
- Savoury, not sweet: there is sugar in the dough, but this lands on the salty side.
- Real tomato and olive oil in it: 16% ripe tomato, weighed as fresh tomato before it was cooked down to paste, and extra virgin olive oil at 3% of the product. Plenty of people who dislike tomatoes eat these happily.
- Two sealed packs inside the box: 26.5 g each.
- It's smaller than you remember: the box was 60 g until February 2024 and is 53 g now, with shorter sticks. If you last bought these on a trip to Japan, that's not your memory playing up.
- Allergens: contains milk, wheat and soy. The same production line also runs egg products. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.
A few things worth knowing before you order. This is not Pocky and there is no chocolate on it: the two are made by the same company from the same stick, and the difference is who it is for: Pocky is the one you share, Pretz the one you eat on your own. It is also not Japan's favourite Pretz: ask Japanese buyers and Umami Salada usually wins, the green box, where "salada" is a seasoning name rather than anything to do with salad, so if you want the one most people there reach for, that's the one. And the tomato is genuinely restrained: reviewers on both sides of the language barrier say it could be stronger, so if you want a bold tomato hit, this one tastes mild.
Ingredients
Wheat flour (domestic), vegetable oils and fats, shortening, sugar, tomato paste, starch, brewed vinegar (tomato vinegar), yeast, vegetable paste, dried tomato extract, onion seasoning, celery extract, salt, dried spinach, pepper
modified starch, seasoning (inorganic salts etc.), flavouring, emulsifier, acidulant, spice extract. Contains milk, wheat and soy.
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Allergens
- Contains
-
- Milk
- Wheat
- Soy
- May contain
-
- Egg
Not ingredients — these are made or handled on the same equipment as this product, so traces are possible. We list every shared-equipment allergen stated on the pack or by the maker.
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Nutrition
| Per bag (26.5 g) | Per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 552 kJ (132 kcal) | 2084 kJ (498 kcal) |
| Protein | 2.3 g | 8.7 g |
| Fat | 6.1 g | 23.0 g |
| Carbohydrate | 17.3 g | 65.3 g |
| – available carbohydrate | 16.4 g | 61.9 g |
| – dietary fibre | 0.92 g | 3.5 g |
| Sodium | 161 mg | 609 mg |
From the Japanese pack's nutrition panel, marked estimated (推定値) by the maker — not the Australian nutrition information panel. Available carbohydrate is the pack's 糖質: carbohydrate less fibre, not sugars. The Japanese pack gives no saturated fat or sugars figure. The per-100 g column, the kJ figures and sodium (from the pack's salt equivalent, 食塩相当量, ÷ 2.54) are our calculation.
Details
- Maker
- Glico · Osaka
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- One box: 53 g, as two sealed 26.5 g inner packs — Glico does not publish a stick count
Our guide
How to eat it
Good to know
- Have it with a drink rather than after dinner: beer, wine, even coffee. It sits on the children's shelf in Japan, but it's as often an adult snack there.
- Open one inner pack, not both: the seal is what stops a box becoming a single sitting.
- The box doubles as a stand for the open bag. Take both inner packs out, push the tab marked PUSH in, pull the flap marked PULL up, then slot one pack back into the pocket that forms — it holds the sticks upright so you can take them one at a time. The side of the box draws the three steps.
- Crush a pack over a green salad. There's a Japanese recipe that does exactly that, and every other ingredient in it is Coles-and-Woolworths stock.
- The sticks are thin and they do break. Expect a few short ones at the bottom of the pack.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
- What they like
I hate tomatoes but this is genuinely delicious. I could eat it forever.
トマト嫌いだけどこれはガチで美味い。一生食べれる。
from monolog, a Japanese review site
- What they like
If it weren't split into two packs I'd surely eat the whole box — a middle-aged woman glad it's divided.
2パックに分かれていなかったから、きっと一箱食べてしまいそうなので、分かれていて良かったと思う中年女です。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
The quantity's down too — it used to be over 60 g and now it's 53 g. So they've shortened it and cut the grams.
量も減ってて以前は60g以上だったのに今は53g！結局 短くして グラム数を減らしてるということですかね
from monolog
- What they like
Tomato, basil and olive oil come together and it tastes like a tomato pasta sauce. Delicious.
トマトとバジル、オリーブオイルの風味が合わさっていてトマトパスタのソースのような味がして美味しかったです。
from monolog
- What they like
The balance of tomato acidity and salt is good — delicious.
トマトの酸味と塩味のバランスが良く、美味しいです。
from monolog
- What they like
I don't like real tomatoes so I'd never bought it, but a family member shared some and it was spicy and really delicious.
本物のトマトが苦手なので購入しないままでしたが、偶然 家族から分けてもらい食べてみたらスパイシーでとても美味しかったです！
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Eating it again after a while, the salt is largely gone and it's much milder. Less of it too, less powder — lighter, but underwhelming.
久々食べたら結構塩味が無くなって薄味になりましたね 量も少なくなりパウダーも減り、健康的ですが物足りない
from mognavi, a Japanese food and drink review site
- What they like
The acidity and salt are pitched just right. It's clean and refreshing, perfect when you want a little something to drink with.
酸味と塩味が良い塩梅です！ さっぱりスッキリしているのでちょっとおつまみ食べたい時に最適。
from monolog
- What they like
A crisp, crunchy texture; within a light flavour where you can taste the tomato's acidity, the salt is judged just right.
ポリポリとした食感でトマト🍅の酸味を感じるあっさりとした風味の中に程良く塩気が効いていました。
from mognavi
- What they like
My favourite Pretz flavour. It tastes like an Italian tomato-basil thing.
プリッツで一番好きな味。 イタリアンのトマトバジルみたいな感じで美味しい。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Eat a lot and the salt gets a bit harsh, but the taste is good.
沢山食べると塩加減が少し辛いですが、味は美味しいです。
from monolog
- What they like
It smells great the moment you open it, and it's properly seasoned — delicious.
開けた瞬間の良い香りがして しっかりと味付けもされていて美味
from monolog
- What they like
I bought it after a long gap and was amazed it was this good — possibly my first since high school.
久しぶりに購入して、こんなに美味しかったのかと驚きでした（笑）高校生の時振りかもです。
from monolog
- What they like
I have it with a drink; my son has it as a snack. The whole family loves it so I buy it fairly often.
私は酒のアテで。息子はおやつで食べます。 家族みんな大好きなので、割と頻繁に買います。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
I once asked here which people preferred. Pretz Salada won by a landslide.
以前ここでどっちか好きか質問したことがあります。プリッツサラダが圧勝でした。
from yahoo
- What they like
A distinctive flavour I can't really place as tomato. But it's good.
トマト味なのかよく分からない独特な味。だが、美味しい。
from monolog
- What they like
I've eaten Tomato Pretz many times. I don't get much tomato, but the salt and sweetness are just right and it's good.
もう何回も食べているトマトのプリッツ。トマトの味はあまり感じないけれど塩気と甘味がちょうどよくておいしい。
from mognavi
Real quotes from the review sites named on the cards. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Glico
- Osaka
Glico has been in Osaka since 1922, and Pretz is one of its oldest lines. The first box went on sale in Hiroshima in April 1962, sold as something to eat with a beer. It didn't work: children bought it instead, so the year after, Glico relaunched it as a snack for them and it sold out again and again.
Tomato arrived in 1989, in the middle of a national enthusiasm for tomatoes, and became the hit that carried the brand through its biggest years. It is still in the standard range today, which for a flavour launched on a food fad is not a small thing.
One small piece of engineering: Glico mills the seasoning fine so that less of it comes off on your fingers.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: glico.com (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
Glico Tomato Pretz Savoury Pretzel Sticks 53g
$2.99 AUD
You are on this one
