20,000 Vending Machines Gone—So Why Is DyDo Making Drinkable Cheesecake?

You can buy Basque cheesecake from a vending machine. There’s also a sparkling drink made in collaboration with FRISK, and even an almond tofu beverage with a strawberry flavor twist.

The company that continues to bring these double-take-worthy oddities to market is Dydo Drinko (Osaka).

Best known for its Dydo Blend and World’s Best Barista Supervised beverage series, the soft drink manufacturer is a long-established player in the vending machine business, with approximately 90% of its sales coming from vending machines. It is also known for unique initiatives such as talking vending machines that speak in local dialects and vending machines that dispense baby diapers.

However, the vending machine business is currently facing strong headwinds. Rising prices and increasing maintenance costs have gradually reduced the number of vending machines on street corners, and Dydo announced that by March 2026 it would remove 20,000 of its 270,000 machines nationwide (compared with fiscal 2024).

We spoke with Katsuhiko Konishi of the company’s Marketing Department Product Development Group about why Dydo continues to develop such distinctive products despite the challenging market.

A company culture that challenges industry firsts

Dydo often makes headlines with its unusual drinks. But according to the company, these unconventional products are far from being random ideas.

“People may see us as a company that makes unusual beverages, but at the core of that image is a philosophy we’ve held since launching Dydo Blend Coffee in 1975: creating things that don’t yet exist in the world. Every product is born from our desire to surprise consumers with something no other company offers.”

Konishi, who has spent more than 20 years in product development, explains that things that don’t yet exist refers to industry-first concepts or product categories that competitors have yet to explore. Over the years, Dydo has introduced products with an element of surprise, beginning with Coffee Revolution, a canned coffee that came with a portion of cream.

According to Konishi, these unconventional beverages all begin with the flexible thinking of the development team members.

“When bringing a product to market, we evaluate whether it matches current trends, whether consumers would want to try it, whether the price is appropriate, and whether it can be manufactured efficiently. However, the most important factor is the creativity of the development team. To be honest, some ideas made us wonder whether they could satisfy all of those criteria, but each time we found ways to refine them and ultimately turn them into products.”

Even ideas that go beyond conventional wisdom are pursued with determination until they become reality. That spirit has been the driving force behind Dydo’s ability to keep producing unconventional beverages for nearly half a century.

The seeds of a hit, made with the expectation of backlash

When it comes to Dydo’s representative unconventional products in recent years, the names that immediately come to mind are “Basque Cheesecake,” “Strawberry Almond Tofu,” and “FRISK SPARKLING.”

Among them, the one that made the biggest impact was “Basque Cheesecake,” released in the fall of 2025. Introduced as the industry’s first shakeable canned cheesecake you can drink, consumers shake the can to break up the contents before drinking. On social media, astonished comments flooded in, such as, “Wait, was cheesecake a drink to begin with?”

It is said that when the project was first proposed, even people within the marketing department expressed skepticism.

“The concept itself was very interesting, but because the contents were an industry first, we had to make repeated adjustments to ensure stable production, and it took about two years before it became a commercial product. When it finally took shape, we received surprised reactions from other departments as well. People were saying, ‘This is interesting!’ and ‘I want to try selling this!'”

Meanwhile, “Strawberry Almond Tofu” was born from a different kind of persistence.

“A product we had planned to release ran into technical hurdles, so we went back and reviewed past ideas to see if there was anything we could make use of. That led us to brush up the ‘Chilled Almond Tofu Shake,’which we had released about 15 years ago, in a modern style and commercialize it.”

The dessert jelly drink, with its thick and jiggly texture that can either be shaken and drunk or scooped up and eaten with a spoon, became a topic of conversation among dessert lovers and vending machine enthusiasts even before its release.

“Actually, ‘Chilled Almond Tofu Shake’ was a product I was in charge of 15 years ago. It was impressive to see it brought back into the world with the fresh approach of today’s younger team members.”

Then there was “FRISK SPARKLING,” which became a major topic of discussion on social media.

Using the license for the breath freshening confectionery “FRISK,” it was released as the world’s first beverage of its kind—a sugar-free carbonated drink that delivers an intense minty and cooling sensation. From immediately after its launch, it generated both praise and criticism on social media and became a major talking point, but this was apparently expected.

“The starting point was the idea of creating a carbonated drink with an unprecedentedly strong cooling sensation. However, if we pursued only that aspect, it would end up as a niche product. That’s when we realized its compatibility with FRISK, approached Kracie, and the collaboration came to fruition.

We were also prepared for negative evaluations of the cooling sensation. At the same time, we believed that if it went viral on social media—even including those opinions—many people would want to try drinking it for themselves.”

The grape flavor that was introduced afterward had an additional objective as well.

“With the grape version, we aimed to achieve both buzz and deliciousness. Bold concepts are important, but if people drink it once and that’s the end of it, it becomes a world of self-satisfaction. I believe that these unconventional products need a balance—how to turn them into repeat purchases.”

The biggest weapon for competing with the industry giants

Of course, not every unconventional product is a success. The company has experienced disappointment many times.

“With unconventional coffee products such as ‘Foaming Demitasse Espresso’ and ‘Whisky-Scented Black,’ we haven’t been able to produce satisfactory results. They resonate very strongly with a certain group of people, and we receive highly positive feedback and requests for re-releases through our customer service center, but from a business scale perspective, the reality is that they’re difficult to sustain.”

Even so, Konishi has no intention of stopping.

“In the future, I definitely want to make a comeback with an unconventional coffee product.”

The reason Dydo continues to focus on unconventional products is that they are directly tied to the company’s management strategy and its reason for existing.

“With the vending machine market becoming increasingly challenging, playing it safe with standard products turns the competition into a battle of brand power. To compete against beverage manufacturers with greater scale, we believe that offering something no one else has is our greatest weapon.”

The vending machine itself also serves as a platform that makes this weapon stand out even more. Trendy dessert beverages, for example, might get lost among countless other products in convenience stores or supermarkets, but in vending machines—where only beverages are lined up—they are much more likely to catch consumers’ attention.

“To begin with, we view each vending machine as a single store. Having not only standard offerings like tea and coffee but also unconventional products brings a sense of fun to consumers and gives them a reason to visit the vending machine.”

In other words, unconventional products are not simply a means of generating sales figures. Rather than confronting the major companies head-on, Dydo’s strategy is to keep creating products that nobody else is making. That is both its way of competing and its reason for being.

“We want to keep releasing products that make people think, ‘Wow, vending machines can do something like this!’ I believe that’s the biggest reason for getting people to come to our vending machines.”

Tomorrow, you might look at vending machines a little differently.

■ Click here for DyDo’s official X account, “Dydo no Hotto Hitoiki” (“Dydo’s Relaxing Break”).