Pepero Day vs Pocky Day: Korea and Japan's November 11 Stick Snacks

Two countries. Two chocolate stick snacks. One date. Every November 11, South Korea celebrates Pepero Day while Japan celebrates Pocky Day — each built on the same simple joke that 11/11 looks like four snack sticks standing in a row. The two days look like twins from a distance, but they grew up in different ways, and the differences are the interesting part.

The snacks: Pepero vs Pocky

Pepero is made by Lotte Wellfood in South Korea and launched in 1983. Pocky is made by Glico in Japan and is much older — it launched in 1966. Both are thin biscuit sticks coated in chocolate, sold in slim boxes, and eaten the same way. Pocky usually leaves a bare biscuit "handle" at one end; classic Pepero is coated more fully along the stick. Flavour ranges overlap a lot — chocolate, strawberry, almond, cookies and cream — and each brand keeps releasing limited editions. Korean fans will tell you Pepero came second and looks similar, Japanese fans agree, and both sides keep buying their own on November 11 anyway.

How each day started

Here's the biggest difference. Pepero Day grew from the ground up: in the mid-1990s, schoolgirls in Busan began exchanging Pepero on November 11, wishing each other to grow tall and slim like the sticks, and the custom spread school by school until the whole country joined in. Companies followed the people. We tell that story in full in how Pepero Day began in Busan.

Pocky Day went the other way. Glico created and promotes it — the company officially marked November 11 as Pocky & Pretz Day in Japan in 1999 and has run campaigns around it ever since, including huge social media pushes and record attempts. One day is a folk custom that business adopted; the other is a company celebration that fans adopted. Both work. They just started from opposite ends.

How the celebrations differ

In Korea, Pepero Day is a giving day first. The core act is handing a box to a specific person — a partner, a friend, a coworker — often decorated, sometimes with a note. Sales explode in the days before the 11th, and the day ranks among Korea's biggest snack-gifting occasions, close to a second Valentine's Day.

In Japan, Pocky Day is louder and more public. It's a marketing festival as much as a gifting day: tower displays, themed events, social media challenges about sharing Pocky photos, and special releases that fans collect. People do give Pocky to friends, but the centre of gravity is the shared public celebration rather than the one-to-one gift.

Which one is bigger?

Hard to score fairly, because they measure different things. In Korea, Pepero Day moves an enormous share of the year's Pepero sales in a few weeks and reaches nearly everyone — schoolkids to office workers. In Japan, Pocky Day has the bigger single-brand machinery behind it, and Pocky itself is the older, more global snack. Korean Pepero Day probably runs deeper as a personal custom; Japanese Pocky Day runs wider as a public campaign.

The friendly rivalry

Online, the two days spar every year. Korean commenters point out that Pepero Day is a genuine folk custom, started by students rather than a boardroom. Japanese commenters answer that Pocky is the original stick snack and its day is older as an official celebration. Food writers comparing the sticks themselves usually call it close — same weight class, slightly different coating styles, both dangerously easy to finish in one sitting. The rivalry stays friendly because both sides know the truth: November 11 belongs to chocolate sticks now, whichever box you grew up with.

Can you celebrate both?

Plenty of people do, especially fans of Korean and Japanese pop culture living elsewhere. The snacks sit side by side in Asian grocery stores in most big cities now. Pick up a red box of Pepero for the Busan tradition and a box of Pocky for the Glico one, and you've covered both November 11 customs in a single shopping trip. For the Korean side, our guide to the best Pepero flavours and gift boxes will sort your choices. And if you want the whole picture of the Korean day — history, customs and FAQ — start at our Pepero Day homepage. Same date, two snacks, zero reason to choose only one.