Kewpie (mayonnaise)
History
!Toichiro Nakashima in 1967
History
Shokuhin Kogyo Co. Ltd. (食品工業株式会社) was founded in Nakano, Tokyo in 1919 by Toichiro Nakashima. He had previously worked in the United States for three years as an intern for the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, where he first encountered mayonnaise and the Kewpie doll that became his emblem. Originally, his business distributed canned salmon. Mayonnaise production began in 1925, and it has been the best-selling brand of mayonnaise in Japan ever since. The company is now called the Kewpie Corporation. The company stopped production of mayonnaise during World War II because of supply shortages and resumed production in 1948.
History
In 1998, the company was sued for US$7 million for trademark infringement by a Japanese businessman who had obtained the rights to the Kewpie doll in Japan. The company defended itself, saying that it had a trademark in Japan going back 73 years, and that the Kewpie character was in the public domain. The courts sided with the mayonnaise manufacturer.
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