"But then, breaking through the unspoken barrier, there she would be: the Yakult lady, sailing toward us on her bicycle with a cool-blue cooler box mounted on the back. A discernible excitement would descend over the crowd of kids as we rushed like hungry pigeons to her feet, waiting for our turn to buy the sweet yogurt drinks she pulled from the cooler."
"The telltale squat bottle with a shiny aluminum cap is stocked in my local grocery store in Chicago next to tofu and other refrigerated Asian goods. The company sells 30 million bottles per day across 40 countries. Or maybe you'd recognize the drink from the 2018 film To All the Boys I've Loved Before, when Lara Jean (Lana Condor) tells Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) about the "Korean yogurt smoothie" she's drinking."
Children in Nagoya experienced Yakult as a moment of communal maternal care delivered by a bicycling vendor known as the Yakult lady, who sold sweet yogurt drinks at neighborhood parks. The vendor's ritual—uniform, bicycle, cooler, and swift movements—created feelings of safety and small confusion about who provided care. Yakult products appear in major U.S. supermarkets, often near tofu and refrigerated Asian goods. The company sells 30 million bottles per day across 40 countries. A brief appearance in the 2018 film To All the Boys I've Loved Before boosted brand visibility and coincided with a 2.8 percent stock increase. Dr. Minoru Shirota invented the sweet, milk-based probiotic at Kyoto University in 1931.
Read at Eater
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