Kewpie - Company History

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Financial history 1965–2025 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded 1919
Founder Nakashima Toichiro
Founding location 東京都中野区
Core business at founding Sauces and processed foods
Listed 1970
President Takamiya Mitsuru President since 2022 (age 65, as of 2026)
Current priority Overseas expansion · Higher value-added products Growing overseas condiments and foodservice delicatessen
Founding
In November 1919 Nakashima Toichiro 中島董一郎 established Shokuhin Kogyo 食品工業 in Kotaki-cho, Nakano Ward, Tokyo, and began making sauces and processed foods. The year before, in 1918, he had already set up Nakashima Shoten to handle selling, so the company that made the goods and the company that sold them were separate from the outset. Production of Kewpie Mayonnaise began in March 1925, but a condiment made by mixing egg and oil was unfamiliar in the Japanese home of the day and took time to catch on. Manufacturing, suspended once raw materials became hard to obtain, resumed in March 1948, and in September 1957 the company changed its name to Kewpie Corporation. It listed on the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in July 1970 and was designated to the First Section in April 1973.
The Decision
Selling and carrying were moved in opposite directions — the one taken in, the other let go. For the first half-century after the founding the division of labour held, with Shokuhin Kogyo manufacturing and Nakashima Tosho selling. Then in December 1972 the company took over the customer network of Nakashima Tosho and switched to selling for itself, opening 20 sales offices and connecting the shop shelf directly to production. Eggs, the main raw material, moved in the same decade: in May 1977 the materials sales division was separated out as Kewpie Tamago, and in December 1981 the company entered fine chemicals from the manufacture of egg-yolk lecithin. The shells and yolks that pile up the more mayonnaise is made turned there into a separate source of earnings. The logistics company raised out of the warehouse division in 1966, by contrast, was not kept in hand: in January 2021 Kewpie sold part of its holding in Kewso Distribution System and took it out of consolidation. Holding on to the selling and letting go of the carrying is what produced the food-only company of today.
Today
Household and foodservice now stand at almost the same size in sales. For the year to November 2025 consolidated revenue was $3.4B (¥513bn) and operating profit $231.2M (¥35bn), with retail at $1.3B (¥190bn) against foodservice at $1.2B (¥186bn). Profit does not fall the same way. Of segment profit of $273.3M (¥41bn), overseas accounted for $90.9M (¥14bn), a third of the total — the largest share of the earnings taken by a region that is less than two-tenths of sales. In China, which it entered in 1993, the company went on to hold 46 per cent of the household mayonnaise market. In November 2025 it made Aohata a wholly owned subsidiary through a share exchange, taking the jam from the neighbouring shelf into its arms in place of the logistics it had let go.
Competition
There are rivals that stand level with Kewpie in condiments, but none that stand level with it in the volume of eggs it handles. Ajinomoto entered household mayonnaise in 1968 and Kao in 2002, and the core business came in below the medium-term plan three years running. Even so Kewpie uses 230,000 tonnes of eggs a year, roughly 9 per cent of domestic production. Where competitors keep mayonnaise as one item in a condiment range, Kewpie raised an egg business and a fine chemicals business out of that same egg, and from 2004 shifted its growth areas to foodservice eggs and to the delicatessen and salads sold through convenience stores. On the condiment shelf it competes on price, but owning the egg-breaking plant and the volume that runs through it is what draws foodservice demand — demand other companies find hard to enter — towards this company.

Timeline

1919–1957A canned-goods trader's mayonnaise, and a company built on splitting making from selling

  1. 1919Shokuhin Kogyo K.K. established in Nakano, Tokyo
  2. 1925Production of Kewpie Mayonnaise begins — the first made in Japan
  3. 1932Kidoen founded at Tadanoumi, Hiroshima — the origin of Aohata jam
  4. 1938Inano plant built
  5. 1938Production of mayonnaise and canned fruit begins
  6. 1948Mayonnaise production resumes after the wartime suspension
  7. 1951Tokyo plant built for mayonnaise production

1957–1985Renamed Kewpie, listed twice, and reunited with its own sales force

  1. 1957Renamed from Shokuhin Kogyo to Kewpie Corporation
  2. 1962Saifu Sangyo established to produce vinegar in-house
  3. 1964Tosu plant built
  4. 1966Warehousing division separated to form Kewpie Soko
  5. 1970Shares listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  6. 1972Nakashima Tosho's customer network taken over; direct selling begins
  7. 1972Twenty sales offices opened across the country
  8. 1973Designated a first-section issue on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  9. 1973Kewpie Frozen (now Delia Foods) established
  10. 1977Egg-materials division separated to found Kewpie Tamago
  11. 1981Entry into fine chemicals; egg-yolk lecithin production begins
  12. 1982Q&B FOODS, INC. established in California

1985–2009Competition in a mature condiment market, and growth moved to eggs and delicatessen

  1. 1988Hashikami plant built as a satellite of the Nakagawara plant
  2. 1993Beijing Kewpie Foods established; entry into the Chinese market
  3. 1994AKESAOVAROS CO., LTD. set up as a joint venture with Saha Pathana
  4. 2002Kao enters household mayonnaise, ending the last of the monopoly
  5. 2002Hangzhou Kewpie Foods established with Mitsubishi Corporation and others
  6. 2004Suzuki Yutaka becomes president, succeeding Oyama Gosuke
  7. 2004Eggs and convenience-store delicatessen designated the growth fields
  8. 2009KEWPIE MALAYSIA SDN. BHD. established

2009–2025Global expansion accelerates while domestic restructuring drives the 2030 Vision

  1. 2013Sengawa Kewport opened on the site of the former Sengawa plant
  2. 2014Bread-related sales business split off and transferred to Aohata
  3. 2014Aohata becomes a consolidated subsidiary
  4. 2016Production and sales begin in Poland, opening Europe
  5. 2016Kobe plant built
  6. 2017Kewpie Co., Ltd. set up in China as the regional holding company
  7. 2019Kewpie Group 2030 Vision and medium-term plan announced
  8. 2020Kansai Kewport opened on the site of the former Itami plant
  9. 2021Part of the Kewso Distribution System shareholding transferred
  10. 2022Moved to the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  11. 2022Fukaya Vegetable Communication established
  12. 2025Aohata becomes a wholly owned subsidiary through a share exchange

Founding Story

1919–1957A canned-goods trader's mayonnaise, and a company built on splitting making from selling

Kewpie began as two companies rather than one: a canned-goods dealer that sold, and a manufacturer in Nakano, Tokyo that made — a division of labour its founder set up in 1918 and 1919 and kept in place for more than half a century. Into that structure he put a product Japan had never made for itself, an egg-yolk mayonnaise built on what he had seen in Britain and the United States, and a fruit-processing venture in Hiroshima that would become the jam brand Aohata.

Nutrition learned abroad, and Japan's first domestically made mayonnaise

The founder, Nakashima Toichiro (中島董一郎), worked at the canning firm Wakasa Shoten before being sent to Britain and the United States in 1912 as an overseas industrial trainee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce; in roughly three years abroad he encountered mayonnaise and orange marmalade[1]. It was there that the idea took root of using food to improve the physique of Japanese people, whose nutrition at the time was poor. On returning home he founded the canned-goods dealer Nakashima Shoten in 1918, and in 1919 established the manufacturing company Shokuhin Kogyo K.K. (食品工業株式会社) in Nakano, Tokyo, starting the business with the production of sauces and canned goods[2]. The idea of making Western-style condiments in Japan, when they had been available only as imports, was his translation of what he had learned abroad into a business.

In 1925 Shokuhin Kogyo manufactured and sold Japan's first domestically made mayonnaise, using egg yolk[3]. The egg-yolk type, richer in nutrition, was a design of its own that differed from the whole-egg mayonnaise common in Europe and America, and the product took its name from Kewpie, a popular character of the day[4]. In a market where the Westernisation of food had only just begun, establishing mayonnaise in Japanese households was not easy work and popular acceptance took many years, but this single product set the company on the road to becoming a condiment maker. The emulsification and canning technologies behind it also became the foundation for new processed foods that came later — jams, pasta sauces and eventually nursing-care foods.

Selling through Nakashima Tosho, and the origins of the Aohata jam business

Shokuhin Kogyo devoted itself to manufacturing while sales were handled by Nakashima Tosho (中島董商店), the trading house run by Nakashima Toichiro, and through this division of labour the two steadily spread mayonnaise — still unfamiliar in Japanese homes — into the wider world. The arrangement that separated the maker from the seller lasted until 1972[5]; because the trading house took on the work of opening sales channels and building relationships with customers, the manufacturing company could concentrate its resources on production and on improving quality. During the war, when raw materials became difficult to obtain, production was suspended for a time, but mayonnaise manufacturing resumed in 1948[6] and the demand that had been lost returned along with the post-war Westernisation of the Japanese diet.

The other pillar alongside mayonnaise was jam, and its source runs back to Kidoen (旗道園), established in 1932 at Tadanoumi in Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture, funded entirely by Nakashima Toichiro[7]. The brand name Aohata comes from the plain blue flags that Cambridge and Oxford flew at the boat race he had watched during his stay in Britain[8]; the original spelling Aohata アオハタ was later changed to the better-looking Aohata アヲハタ. This jam business, which applied canning and emulsification technology to fruit processing, was in later years tied back to the parent as a consolidated subsidiary of Kewpie and came to underpin the breadth of the group's food range.

1957–1985Renamed Kewpie, listed twice, and reunited with its own sales force

In 1957 the manufacturer took the name of its own product and became Kewpie, and over the following two decades it built out the parts of the business it had not owned: vinegar, warehousing and transport, a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and finally, in 1972, its own sales network. Non-consolidated revenue rose from $37.2M (¥13bn) in 1965 to $118.5M (¥37bn) in the year it began selling for itself, and the search for more to do with the egg carried the company out of condiments altogether.

A change of name and two listings that marked the company's modernisation

In 1957 Shokuhin Kogyo changed its corporate name to Kewpie Corporation[9]. Adopting as the company name a product name that worked in Japanese and in English alike was a choice that already looked towards future international expansion, at a time when the business was still centred on domestic demand. During the 1960s it set up Saifu Sangyo (西府産業, now Kewpie Jozo) to produce its own vinegar, and separated its warehousing division into Kewpie Soko (キユーピー倉庫, now Kewso Distribution System)[10], advancing a vertical integration that put raw materials and logistics in its own hands. The warehouse company took over the transport division as well in 1971, and changed its trade name as the scope of its work widened — to Kewpie Soko Unyu (キユーピー倉庫運輸) in July 1976, to Kewpie Distribution System in December 1989, and to Kewso Distribution System in April 2000[11]. As it broadened the base of its businesses, the company shed the character of a founding family's trading house and took the shape of a modern food manufacturer with production and distribution of its own.

In July 1970 Kewpie listed its shares on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange[12], and in April 1973 it was designated a first-section issue[13]. The listing widened the path to raising capital and was also the occasion for bringing to a family business — one that had been inseparable from the founding family's trading house — the discipline of a public company, with its disclosure and its accountability. Around the time of the listing the company put in place a structure that bound production, sales and logistics together, and built a distribution base that reached retailers nationwide with household mayonnaise as its core product. Going public was also the point of arrival for a company founded by a canned-goods trader back from study abroad, which had spent half a century accumulating social trust.

Unifying sales in-house, and expansion into eggs and fine chemicals

In December 1972 Kewpie took over the customer network of Nakashima Tosho, which had handled the bulk selling of its products, set up twenty sales offices and switched to selling on its own account[14]. Ending the half-century separation of making from selling, and having the maker hold the selling side too, gave the company a structure in which changes at the shop front and in demand could be fed straight back into production and product planning. The following year, 1973, it established the frozen and chilled foods company Kewpie Frozen (now Delia Foods)[15] and began stretching its reach into the territory around condiments. Taking hold of distribution itself was the indispensable footing on which it would later deliver its delicatessen and salad business to convenience-store shelves across the country.

The search around its main raw material, the egg, produced businesses that went beyond the frame of a condiment maker. In 1977 it separated the egg-materials division to found Kewpie Tamago (キユーピータマゴ)[16], opening the way to selling liquid and processed eggs to commercial customers. In 1981 it went further, entering the fine chemicals field with products such as egg-yolk lecithin[17], beginning research that turned by-products of food manufacturing into functional materials. In 1982 it established Q&B FOODS, INC. in California and embarked on its first overseas production[18]. The diversification strategy of extending the egg and emulsification technologies honed in mayonnaise into adjacent fields at home and abroad was settled in this period.

Read the full history in Japanese →

Notes

  1. 日本食糧新聞 (Nihon Shokuryo Shimbun), 26 June 2019↩
  2. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  3. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  4. Kewpie Corporation corporate website, キユーピーの歩みと未来 (The Kewpie Story and Its Future)↩
  5. Nakashima Tosho 中島董商店 corporate website, corporate history↩
  6. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  7. Aohata アヲハタ corporate website, The Aohata Story↩
  8. Aohata アヲハタ corporate website, The Aohata Story↩
  9. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  10. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  11. Kewso Distribution System キユーソー流通システム corporate website, corporate history↩
  12. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  13. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  14. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  15. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  16. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  17. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  18. Kewpie Corporation, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩

References & sources

  1. Kewpie Corporation (annual securities reports), including the corporate-history section and the consolidated and segment filings under Japanese GAAP.
  2. Kewpie Corporation — corporate website, The Kewpie Story and Its Future; the announcement of 7 Jan 2021 on the partial sale of shares and the resulting change in consolidated subsidiaries; the main Q&A from the FY2025 interim results briefing (3 Jul 2025) and the FY2025 results briefing (14 Jan 2026).
  3. Group and related company websites: Nakashima Tosho (corporate history); Aohata; Kewso Distribution System (corporate history); Kewpie Tamago (corporate history and profile); Kewpie Fine Chemical.
  4. Nihon Shokuryo Shimbun, 26 Jun 2019.

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