From mochi ice cream to strawberry sandos, Japanese sweet treats are tickling UK tastebuds
If you said to a friend that you fancied Japanese food this weekend, they might be forgiven for thinking you meant sushi.But lately a new culinary export from Japan is catching up with fish and rice in the hearts and tastebuds of British foodies.Soft, sweet and full of character, Japanese-style desserts – from mochi ice cream to matcha cookies – have been steadily gaining ground on UK shelves.Such is their popularity, M&S has launched its own take on the strawberry sando, a Japanese convenience store favourite, a sandwich made with soft milk bread, whipped cream and neatly layered fruit.According to some industry commentators, British retailers are taking note of consumers’ growing appetite for “joyful” sweet treats as a simple pleasure to brighten their days.
“We’re seeing people turn to food as an antidote to life’s uncertainties – they’re looking for small, joyful indulgences that feel novel, premium and culturally rich,” said Charles Banks, a co-founder of The Food People, a UK-based food trends consultancy,“Japanese sweets … bring playful formats, surprising textures and beautifully balanced flavours that tap into this mood perfectly,Add in TikTok’s power to visually amplify the unfamiliar and suddenly these once niche delights are must-haves,”At Ocado, searches for matcha are up 96,2% year on year, while searches for “Japanese” have risen by more than a third over the same period.
Yuki Gomi, a Japanese chef and food writer, said it was wonderful to see the trend, even if it reflected only a slice of Japan’s “rich sweets culture”, where desserts are “cute, comforting and often tied to the seasons”.She said the appeal of these sweets lay not just in their flavour but in their texture and “in mouth-feel”.“Japanese sweets are often lighter and less sugary than their western equivalents, and there’s real joy in the textures – soft and creamy mochi ice cream, airy sponge, the crisp snap of Pocky.”It’s that sensory experience – along with the playful fusion of Japanese flavours and sweet treats already familiar to UK shoppers – that helps explain why more of these snacks are now landing on British supermarket shelves.“Quite often, the sweets are given a Japanese twist – maybe a hint of matcha, yuzu or kinako.
A familiar treat, with a fresh Japanese flavour,” she said.Sign up to FeastRecipes from all our star cooks, seasonal eating ideas and restaurant reviews.Get our best food writing every weekafter newsletter promotionOn TikTok, the hashtag #mochi has more than 1.4m posts, #matchacookies has 10,500, and videos of Japanese cheesecakes have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.Online food trends don’t just shape what people eat, they influence what people are willing to try, as social feeds become a source of inspiration and discovery, said Seyi Oduwole, a foresight analyst at The Future Laboratory.
“As seen with the viral Dubai chocolate craze, today’s consumers want to be part of the online conversation, craving connection through texture, cultural heritage and bold, shareable visuals.We’re particularly seeing the rise of global flavours, third-culture cuisine, and consumers adopting a ‘try anything’ attitude.”These foreign food trends and adoptions of cuisines should be seen as a natural expression of a truly globalised world, said the gourmet tour operator and cookbook author Roberta Muir.She said we should expect more fusions, fun interpretations and internationally inspired snacks to continue cropping up on supermarket shelves.“As the world becomes smaller and people increasingly travel from one corner of it to another, it’s natural they bring home a taste for the new flavours they’ve discovered.
”
Gov.uk smartphone app to launch with limited functionality
A government app intended to “cut life admin” will be free to download by millions of UK citizens from Tuesday, but its functions will be limited and the cabinet minister in charge has admitted: “The design is not as we would like it to be.”The gov.uk app will be accessible on smartphones for people aged 16 and over and is intended to be the main mobile hub for many citizen interactions with the government, although not the NHS or HM Revenue and Customs.Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, said the version launched this week would only steer users to existing government webpages, with more functionality to be added by the end of the year.A generative artificial intelligence chatbot trained on 700,000 pages of the gov
Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions
Microsoft has revealed details of an artificial intelligence system that performs better than human doctors at complex health diagnoses, creating a “path to medical superintelligence”.The company’s AI unit, which is led by the British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, has developed a system that imitates a panel of expert physicians tackling “diagnostically complex and intellectually demanding” cases.Microsoft said that when paired with OpenAI’s advanced o3 AI model, its approach “solved” more than eight of 10 case studies specially chosen for the diagnostic challenge. When those case studies were tried on practising physicians – who had no access to colleagues, textbooks or chatbots – the accuracy rate was two out of 10.Microsoft said it was also a cheaper option than using human doctors because it was more efficient at ordering tests
‘Lidar is lame’: why Elon Musk’s vision for a self-driving Tesla taxi faltered
After years of promising investors that millions of Tesla robotaxis would soon fill the streets, Elon Musk debuted his driverless car service in a limited public rollout in Austin, Texas. It did not go smoothly.The 22 June launch initially appeared successful enough, with a flood of videos from pro-Tesla social media influencers praising the service and sharing footage of their rides. Musk celebrated it as a triumph, and the following day, Tesla’s stock rose nearly 10%.What quickly became apparent, however, was that the same influencer videos Musk promoted also depicted the self-driving cars appearing to break traffic laws or struggle to properly function
Elon Musk calls Trump’s big bill ‘utterly insane and destructive’ as Senate debates
The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive.“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote on Saturday as the Senate was scheduled to call a vote to open debate on the nearly 1,000-page bill.“Utterly insane and destructive,” Musk added. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”Passing the package, Musk said, would be “political suicide for the Republican Party
Online hacks to offline heists: crypto leaders on edge amid increasing attacks
Industry figures are seeing beyond the ‘illusion of invisibility’ after series of investor kidnappingsCryptocurrency traders such as Mohammed Arsalan are prepared to watch their online assets expand and explode if they miss the right moment, making or breaking their fortunes in just minutes. All in a day’s work on the internet. Offline, though, they have found themselves less equipped for the consequences of affluence. A string of kidnappings has plagued the industry over the past year and left traders across the globe paranoid, fearful and keen to invest in physical security measures.Arsalan grew up working class in Karachi, Pakistan
Jeff in Venice: seven takeaways from the Bezos-Sánchez wedding
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sánchez held their wedding ceremony in Venice’s Grand canal on Friday, the centrepiece of a three-day gala that drew dozens of stars but also protests by local activists. Here are seven takeaways.The couple kicked off celebrations with a foam party on their $500m (£364m) super yacht moored near the Croatian island of Unije. Coinciding with Sánchez’s son Evan Whitesell’s 19th birthday, paparazzi photos showed the couple wearing swimwear and sunhats covered in frothy suds as they partied alongside Whitesell and his friends. Foam parties can cause conjunctivitis, so the decision to hold one just days before their nuptials was somewhat surprising but maybe billionaire foam hits different
Macquarie digs deeper for redemption at Southern Water. There was no alternative | Nils Pratley
Fed chair Jerome Powell blames Trump tariffs for failure to cut US interest rates this year – as it happened
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
England v India: second women’s T20 cricket international – as it happened
Coco Gauff knocked out of Wimbledon in first round by nerveless Dayana Yastremska