Cold soup smoothies are good for the gut and good for the ‘Gram.
Ever since 7-Eleven completed its rollout of smoothie machines at around 18,000 stores in Japan in 2024, the chain has been experimenting with all sorts of unique ingredients, giving us everything from coffee through to matcha and even sweet potato varieties.
Now, the chain is rethinking the whole concept of smoothies, by announcing the release of two new “Cold Soup Smoothies” that blur the line between sweet drink and nourishing meal with an interesting blend of ingredients.
▼ The first new variety is the Fruit Gazpacho Smoothie.
Like all of the chain’s smoothies, these new varieties are sold frozen, with chopped ingredients inside that are whipped up by dedicated machines operated by customers at the counter. The gazpacho variety is inspired by the classic chilled Spanish soup, and features a blend of cherry tomatoes, paprika, and watermelon juice blended with whole lemons, including the peel, for a refreshing summer drink that contains both sweet and savoury notes.
▼ The juice component is cleverly frozen into cubes, matching the size of the other ingredients to create a well-balanced blend of texture and flavour.
▼ Then we have the Grilled Corn Smoothie.
Designed to recreate the flavour of freshly grilled corn, this drink combines roasted sweetcorn with oligosaccharides and fermented rice bran, creating a creamy cold soup with a smoky sweetness.
▼ Oligosaccharides are a type of prebiotic carbohydrate that helps to nourish beneficial gut bacteria.
As the somewhat fancier-than-normal ingredients suggest, these drinks aren’t your typical, run-of-the-mill convenience store product. That’s because rather than developing the drinks entirely in-house, 7-Eleven brought together experts from several fields to create the recipes.
Chef Tatsuya Noda from Innovative Kitchen 8go, a restaurant known for its “regenerative” approach to cooking and reducing food waste, worked on developing the well-rounded flavour…
▼ … while Bacterico, a company specialising in gut microbiome research, contributed nutritional expertise.
The collaboration was coordinated through GIC Tokyo (Gastronomy Innovation Campus Tokyo), a food innovation hub operated by Tokyo Tatemono that brings chefs, researchers and businesses together to develop new food concepts.
By incorporating “regenerative” food production into the new release, 7-Eleven is able to save food and edible byproducts that might otherwise go to waste. The Grilled Corn Smoothie, for example, contains fermented rice bran developed by Fermenstation, which makes us of a rice milling byproduct while adding nutritional benefits for gut health.
According to 7-Eleven, customers are increasingly viewing smoothies as not only a tasty drink but a healthy meal option, so creating a new soup-style variety is said to be a natural next step in catering to these needs.
▼ 冷製スープ = Chilled Soup
Though hot canned soup in vending machines has long been a thing in Japan, we’ve never seen cold soup smoothies before, and with professional chefs and gut health specialists overseeing the process, these look set to become the next big viral convenience store trend to flood your socials.
The new smoothies are only being sold in limited areas of Tokyo, though, with the Fruit Gazpacho Smoothie available at select stores in Chuo Ward while the Grilled Corn Smoothie will be available at select stores in Chuo and Chiyoda wards.
Released on 28 July, each variety is priced at 462 yen (US$3.10) plus tax, and will be sold in the standing freezer section for customers to whip up fresh at smoothie machines on the counter after purchasing them.
Source, images: Press release
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