Taichiro Morinaga (1865–1937) was a Japanese philanthropist and entrepreneur. In 1899, he founded what would become Morinaga & Co, the first modern candy company in Japan, and the first to mass-produce chocolates in the country. Now known for the popular fruit candy Hi-Chew, one of Morinaga & Co's first products was marshmallow. Early life Morinaga (1865–1937) was born on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, in Hizen Imari. He had no formal education. His father died when he was young and he was estranged from his mother's family. Later he became a potter's apprentice in Yokohama. He later became a branch manager for a wholesaler in nearby Yokohama, but his branch lost money after extending too much credit to customers due to leniency. Since employees were considered personally responsible for such losses, Morinaga searched for a way to repay his boss. With no local prospects found to repay the loss, Morinaga, at age 23, moved to the United States where he opened a hardware store in San Francisco. Racism against Asians, common at the time, made business difficult. During the visit, he also converted to Christianity. Candy pioneer in Japan During his time in the United States, an American gave him a piece of candy which was a new appetizing treat for Morinaga. Morinaga returned to Japan but came to the United States for a second time. He was unable to obtain candy apprentice jobs in the United States because of his race. Instead, he worked as a janitor in a candy factory to gain experience. Morinaga studied candymaking in the United States for eleven years before returning to Japan. In 1899, he opened a candy store in the Akasaka District of Tokyo called "Morinaga Mill of Western-style Sweets" (later called Morinaga & Co). Japanese people in the United States had told Moringa that they liked marshmallows, but that they were unavailable in Japan. Inspirited by this knowledge, his first product was marshmallows, which he called "angel food" because of their color and the association with Christianity. He started by selling perishable sweets from a pushcart, but shifted to selling non-perishable sweets as a wholesaler. His products were initially popular with the wives of foreign ministers. Morinaga hired Hanzaburo Matsuzaki, a friend and Christian, to market his candies in 1905, and the company started mass production of sweets with a factory steam engine in 1909. While Morinaga was initially doubtful that