, commonly known as just Glico, is a Japanese multinational food processing company headquartered in Nishiyodogawa-ku,

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

. It does business across 30 countries, in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Paci ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Overview

Ezaki Glico's primary business is manufacturing

confectionery Confectionery is the Art (skill), art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlappi ...

products such as

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec ci ...

, chips,

chewing gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/ plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its t ...

s and

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...

, and

dairy product Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items i ...

s. Additionally, Glico manufactures processed foods such as curry stocks and retort

takikomi gohan ''Takikomi gohan'' (炊き込みご飯, 炊き込み御飯) is a Japanese rice dish seasoned with dashi and soy sauce along with mushrooms, vegetables, meat, or fish. The ingredients of ''takikomi gohan'' are cooked with the rice. This dish is c ...

pouch, and

dietary supplement A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order ...

products. Glico's main competitors are

Meiji Seika is a Japanese snack food company. It is the trade name of a pharmaceutical company in Japan. It was renamed into the on March 31, 2011. It is currently a subsidiary of Meiji Holdings and a Japanese leader in the area of infectious disease with ...

, Lotte, Morinaga, Fujiya and in confectionery business, and House Foods, Meiji and

S&B Foods is a Japanese company which manufactures, processes and distributes foodstuffs, spices and condiments, instant curries, and the manufacture and sale of cooked food. Their logo shows the S being the start of the word "Spice" and the B coming from ...

in processed food business. Ezaki Glico's main financier was

Sanwa Bank was a major Japanese bank headquartered in Osaka, which operated from 1933 to 2002. It merged with Tokai Bank to form UFJ Bank (now part of MUFG Bank). In the 1990s, it was the most profitable bank in the world, and second-largest in terms of ass ...

, which was merged into the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Ezaki Glico is a member of Midori Kai, a group of companies whose main financier was Sanwa Bank.

Corporate message

*"Good Taste and Good Health" (おいしさと健康, 1971—1992) *"A Wholesome Life in the Best of Taste" (1992—, message in Japanese "おいしさと健康" is still in use)

History

Japan

In 1919, Riichi Ezaki created a

caramel candy Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard. The process of carameliz ...

product containing

glycogen Glycogen is a multibranched polysaccharide of glucose that serves as a form of energy storage in animals, fungi, and bacteria. The polysaccharide structure represents the main storage form of glucose in the body. Glycogen functions as one of ...

extracted from

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...

s. The caramel candy product was named "Cuchieco". The sales copy of this product was "300 Meters in a Single Piece," and a running man was painted on the package. On February 11, 1922 Riichi started selling Glico products at

Mitsukoshi is an international department store chain with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. It is a subsidiary of Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, which also owns the Isetan department store chain. History It was founded in 1673 with the (shop name) , sell ...

Osaka branch. Later, in 1922, Riichi established a company, Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd Glico is the shorted word for glycogen. Its Osaka Factory and Tokyo Factory were destroyed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and they were reopened in 1951. Popular products like

Pretz Pretz (プリッツ, ''Purittsu'') is a Japanese snack made by Ezaki Glico. Like Ezaki Glico's other popular snack, Pocky, Pretz is stick-shaped and comes with a texture similar to pretzels. Unlike Pocky, Pretz is dusted with seasonings instead of ...

and

Pocky is a Japanese sweet snack food produced by the Ezaki Glico food company. Pocky was first sold in 1966, and was invented by Yoshiaki Koma. It consists of coated biscuit sticks. It was named after the Japanese onomatopoeic word , which is suppos ...

were introduced in 1963 and 1966 respectively. In 1984,

Glico Morinaga case The , also known by its official designation , was a famous extortion case from 1984 to 1985 in Japan, primarily directed at the Japanese industrial confectioneries Ezaki Glico and Morinaga, and currently remains unsolved. The entire case spanned 1 ...

, a series of criminal incidents targeting Japanese major food manufacturers, occurred. Ezaki Glico was one of the victims. Targeted by a group known as "The Monster with 21 Faces", the group claimed that $21 million ($2.26 billion Yen) worth of sweets were laced with Potassium cyanide soda, while Katsuhisa Ezaki, President and CEO, was kidnapped but escaped by himself. Ezaki Glico was blackmailed and its office was burned by the criminals.

Products

Ezaki Glico manufactures a wide variety of products. Major products are listed here. Unless otherwise noted, the explanation in this "Products" paragraph is based on Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd. 2017a, p. 37-42.

Confections

TCHO TCHO is a chocolate maker based in Berkeley, California, US that promotes itself as working with cacao bean farmers and cooperatives to improve growing, fermentation and drying methods. Its factory and headquarters were formerly located on Pier 17 ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

based artisanal chocolate manufacturer of various chocolate bars. *Glico, caramel product. In addition to the standard flavor, there are caramel flavor and crushed almond flavor products. *

, chocolate-coated pretzel sticks, which come in many other flavors. The total sales from 1966 exceeds 10 billion packages. In Europe, this product is sold with the "Mikado" brand. *

, pretzel sticks, which come in many other flavors. *Almond Chocolate, almonds coated by chocolate. *Caplico, frosting-dipped waffle biscuits in the shape of ice cream cones that come in either chocolate or strawberry flavor. *Bisco, wheat germ crackers with yogurt cream using special yeast. *BREO, an oral care candy that was developed for cleaning the tongue and breath.

Dairy products

*Pucchin Pudding, the world's best-selling pudding product. Its characteristic is a special package with which consumers can efficiently move the contents on a plate.

Ice-cream products

*Giant Cone, ice cream in a large cone with crisp chocolate and nut toppings. *Panapp, vanilla ice cream in a handy long cup with fruit sauce fillings in the centre. *Papico, sherbet that comes in tubes. *, bite-sized round ice candies. Ezaki Glico promoted this product by an extremely realistic CG character,

Aimi Eguchi is a fictional Japanese idol. She is a CGI composite of various features of seven existing (all now former) members of the theater/idol group AKB48.AKB48 AKB48 (pronounced ''A.K.B. Forty-Eight'') is a Japanese idol girl group named after the Akihabara (''Akiba'' for short) area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. AKB48's producer, Yasushi Akimoto, wanted to form a girl group with i ...

. *Calorie Control Ice Cream series, which uses lower-calorie sweetening agents

maltitol Maltitol is a sugar alcohol (a polyol) used as a sugar substitute. It has 75–90% of the sweetness of sucrose (table sugar) and nearly identical properties, except for browning. It is used to replace table sugar because it is half as energetic, ...

and

sucralose Sucralose is an artificial sweetener and sugar substitute. The majority of ingested sucralose is not broken down by the body, so it is noncaloric. In the European Union, it is also known under the E number E955. It is produced by chlorination ...

in place of sugar and starch syrup often used in ice cream.

Tofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English, is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', ''extra firm'' or ''super f ...

is also used to replace dairy products to lower the amount of calories. *Seventeen Ice, a brand of ice cream coming in over 20 different flavors which is only available in

vending machines A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fir ...

Processed foods

*Ni-dan Juku Curry, cubed-type Japanese-style curry stock. *Donburi-tei, instant

donburi is a Japanese "rice-bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice. ''Donburi'' meals are usually served in oversized rice bowls which are also called ''donburi''. If one needs to ...

retort pouch product. * Cream stew roux.

Baby formula

*ICREO Balance Milk, a powdered baby formula manufactured by Icreo Co., Ltd.

Ezaki Glico's large LED sign located above

Dōtonbori is one of the principal tourist destinations in Osaka, Japan, running along the Dōtonbori canal from Dōtonboribashi Bridge to Nipponbashi Bridge in the Namba district of the city's Chuo ward. Historically a theater district, it is now a popu ...

in Osaka has been a landmark of the city since its initial construction in 1935. It bears the Glico running man on a blue race track, as well as some of Osaka's other landmarks in the background. The giant neon sign has been revised on several occasions in order to celebrate events such as the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

and to bolster team spirit for Osaka's baseball team, the

Hanshin Tigers The Hanshin Tigers (Japanese: 阪神タイガース ''Hanshin Taigāsu'') are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and is owned by Hanshin Electric Railway ...

. As the sign is quite well known, it has long been a popular photo stop for tourists as well as locals. Ezaki Glico was also the main sponsor of the anime series ''

Tetsujin 28 , known as simply ''Tetsujin 28'' in international releases, is a 1956 manga written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who also created ''Giant Robo''. The series centers on the adventures of a young boy named Shotaro Kaneda, who c ...

'' (1963—1966, the original Japanese version of ''

Gigantor is a 1963 anime adaptation of ''Tetsujin 28-go'', a manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama released in 1956. It debuted on US television in January 1966. As with ''Speed Racer'', the characters' original names were altered and the original series' viol ...

'').

References

Materials

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Glico Global Official Site

Ezaki Glico Official website
{{Authority control Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Companies based in Osaka Prefecture Food and drink companies established in 1929 Confectionery companies of Japan Multinational companies headquartered in Japan Multinational food companies Japanese brands Midori-kai Snack food manufacturers of Japan Japanese companies established in 1929