Ogawa: 130 Years of Turning Japanese Materials into Aroma

I want to share Japan’s distinctive scents with people around the world.
Yutaka Ogawa, President of Ogawa & Co., Ltd. (2024; translated from Japanese)

Even the blossoms thinned out while peaches are growing have a fragrance. Working with producers in Okayama, Ogawa turned those peach blossoms into fragrance ingredients for shampoos and cosmetics. Farming for fruit and composing with the scent of flowers became connected activities rooted in the same place.

Ogawa & Co., Ltd. makes flavors for food, fragrances for cosmetics and household products, and ingredients used in both. A business importing aromatic materials, established in Osaka in 1893, expanded into synthesis, cultivation, extraction, analysis, and blending. Today, its scent creators venture into the places where ingredients grow and consider what those materials can express.

Key Facts
From an Osaka Ingredient Merchant to Manufacturing and Research
Natural Ingredients Begin Where They Grow
Perfumers Build Product Fragrances from Ingredients
Analysis and Creation in Food Flavors
1. Darjeeling’s Character and the Aroma After a Sip
2. Measuring How Coffee Aroma Changes over Time
Japanese Vanilla Grown by Flavorists
International Expansion and Today’s Business
An Aside: Welcoming People to Osaka through Scent
Milestones
References

Key Facts

Official name: Ogawa & Co., Ltd.
Founded: February 11, 1893, as Hoko Genryo Ogawa Shoten in Doshomachi, Osaka
Early proprietor: Yasubei Ogawa, who established an independent business after working at Takeda Shoten
Incorporated: April 28, 1933, as Ogawa Koryoten Co., Ltd.
Renamed to its present name: November 1945
Registered head office: Nihonbashi Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Principal activities: Research, development, manufacture, and sale of food flavors and ingredients, fragrances and cosmetic ingredients, and aroma ingredients
Official website: Ogawa

From an Osaka Ingredient Merchant to Manufacturing and Research

Yasubei Ogawa and the Doshomachi Business

The story began in 1893 with Hoko Genryo Ogawa Shoten in Doshomachi, Osaka, directly importing and selling aromatic materials. Its early proprietor, Yasubei Ogawa, set up independently after working at Takeda Shoten; records also show that he obtained pharmaceutical sales agency rights for the Kansai region in 1907. The fragrance merchant’s beginnings were connected to the pharmaceutical trade.

Yutaka Fujita, who worked in research, development, and international expansion at Ogawa, describes the business as a spin-off from Takeda Chobei Shoten. From trading medicinal materials to specializing in aromatic ingredients, identifying materials and delivering them to the makers who needed them became the company’s foundation.

Expanding into Synthetic Ingredients and Plant Cultivation

In 1924, the company began manufacturing synthetic aroma ingredients, including linalool. It moved beyond delivering imported materials to making them itself. It incorporated as Ogawa Koryoten Co., Ltd. in 1933 and adopted its present name, Ogawa & Co., Ltd., in November 1945. Founding, incorporation, and renaming were separate milestones.

For natural ingredients, it also began with growing plants. In 1936, it established farms for citronella and other crops, together with an essential-oil and extract factory, in Taiwan. Experimental farms for patchouli and other plants followed in 1938. In 1941, it established cultivation of shiso and other plants and production of essential oils and extracts in Hokkaido. Obtaining aromas expanded from sourcing materials into cultivation and processing.

In 1958, it began manufacturing the powdered flavor COATON. Its business was supported not only by aromatic materials but also by technologies that processed them into forms usable in food. The Okayama factory opened in 1983, when the Osaka factory was relocated in its entirety.

Work Passed On by Managers and Researchers

In 1986, then-president Yoshiharu Ogawa received the Medal with Blue Ribbon. His achievements included helping develop Japan’s flavor and fragrance industry and contributing to regional industries through the cultivation of aromatic raw materials. Relationships with ingredient-growing regions are not merely a recent activity.

Researchers also play a part in the continuity that sustains the company. After graduating from Osaka University’s Faculty of Science and working on aroma development at Ogawa, Yutaka Fujita helped renew its research and development system and worked in its international division and overseas postings. Since retiring in 2020, he has continued communicating about flavors, fragrances, and food additives. His work has encompassed both understanding raw materials through research and the corporate systems that deliver aromas.

Research facilities expanded from the Maihama Research Institute, opened in 1999, to the Tsukuba site in 2004 and the Tsukuba Research Institute within that site in 2017. Today, the Materials Development Center in Ami, Ibaraki, develops natural essential oils and extracts alongside manufacturing facilities. It is a place where laboratory results are developed into ingredients that can be produced consistently in a factory.

Natural Ingredients Begin Where They Grow

Extraction and Production Tailored to the Material

A natural material’s scent varies with its origin and season, as well as the part used and processing conditions. Ingredient developers at the Materials Development Center examine extraction and processing methods for each material and establish production methods in consultation with perfumers and factory staff. Obtaining a pleasing scent is not the end of the work. Production time, equipment, safety, cost, and quality must all meet the requirements for a usable aroma ingredient.

At the Okayama factory, staff processing fresh Japanese citrus into essential oils assess the condition of materials affected by weather and temperature, adjusting conditions using previous production results and feedback from the factory floor. Working with natural materials is not simply repeating the same operation. It requires ways to balance quality and yield while responding to seasonal differences.

Lemon Farming and Agriculture Guided by Aroma

Current president Yutaka Ogawa’s move into growing domestic ingredients was also intended to convey the appeal of a place through scent. The search for candidate sites began around 2017. Rather than choosing a crop first, the company considered crops and regions where its technologies could be used, together with access to manufacturing facilities. Oita’s Marine Lemon connected with the freshness and strength the company had sought to express in its flavor creation.

Ogawa’s Oita Saiki Farm was established in 2018. Planting began in March 2021, and by March 2022, 4,000 trees had been planted across eight hectares. Establishing a company and preparing and cultivating farmland each take time. Growing the fruit itself enabled Ogawa to investigate how the balance of aroma compounds changes with ripeness and apply those differences to food flavors.

Bringing Peach Blossoms and Muscat Grapes into Fragrance

Regional collaboration can also produce new uses for ingredients. In June 2022, Ogawa, JA Zen-Noh Okayama, and the Okayama branch of the Norinchukin Bank signed an agreement on using and promoting local agricultural products. On March 31, 2023, they released a fragrance focusing on blossoms that had previously been removed during peach production. Intended for shampoos and cosmetics, the project uses a springlike floral scent distinct from that of the fruit.

The same agreement also led to flavors and fragrances from Okayama-grown Muscat of Alexandria grapes. A food flavor was announced in 2024, followed in April 2025 by the completion of a fragrance for cosmetics and related products. Flavor experienced while eating and scent experienced in cosmetics serve different purposes. A material from one growing region is redesigned to suit each kind of product.

The company also works with floral materials including Oshima cherry from Izu Oshima and Misato Sekka, a white lavender from Misato, Akita. An agreement to use scents from natural materials centered on Oshima cherry was signed in 2019, followed by an agreement with Misato in 2021. Rather than merely borrowing a plant’s name as an image, the company makes relationships with producing regions and growers part of ingredient development.

Perfumers Build Product Fragrances from Ingredients

Between assembling ingredients and completing a scent that people enjoy lies the work of perfumery. Ogawa’s perfumers combine dozens of ingredients for themes such as skin care, detergents, and air fresheners, searching for balance through repeated trials. New ingredients also change the range of scents they can express.

A perfumer can be described as both a technician and an artist.
Yutaka Fujita, formerly responsible for research and development and international operations at Ogawa (2023; translated from Japanese)

Fujita’s words describe the work of combining natural and synthetic aroma ingredients. Alongside natural essential oils and extracts, Ogawa handles aroma chemicals and bases for compounded fragrances. Its Essential Oil Blend range, composed solely with natural essential oils, is one series among these diverse offerings.

The relationship with the product base is also important in fragrance design. Fragrances for perming and hair-color products must cover the characteristic odors of ingredients and treatments without impairing product performance, while maintaining their scent in alkaline conditions. Adding a pleasant smell and making it function inside the product are interconnected challenges.

One of the company’s perfumers describes mentoring junior perfumers as part of the role, alongside work involving multiple teams from plant cultivation through ingredient manufacture to composition. The company provides new-employee training, agricultural production training, and specialist flavor and fragrance training. This is employee education that passes on ingredient knowledge and creative skills, not a perfumery school open to general enrollment.

Analysis and Creation in Food Flavors

Darjeeling’s Character and the Aroma After a Sip

Flavorists creating food flavors consider not just the aroma in a bottle but its strength, onset, and persistence during eating or drinking. They produce prototypes close to the finished product, taste and evaluate them, and refine the composition. Alongside aroma smelled through the nostrils, retronasal aroma traveling from the mouth toward the nose helps shape deliciousness.

In 2017, Naomi Soga presented research on a tea flavor using Darjeeling’s aroma. Comparing infusions of eight teas and looking for compounds that contributed strongly to their aroma identified MMP as a clue to Darjeeling’s distinctive character. Although described as meatlike on its own, the compound gave a fruity, green opening when incorporated into a tea flavor. An ingredient’s individual odor and its role in a mixture are not necessarily the same.

The research also used the company’s proprietary R-FISS retronasal aroma analysis to examine compounds reaching the nose during drinking and express a refreshing green-floral finish. Careful selection and proportioning of compounds led to a flavor that conveyed Darjeeling’s character and lingering impression in a cold tea beverage. This was research into beverage flavoring.

Measuring How Coffee Aroma Changes over Time

In research presented in 2018, Takafumi Itobe compared aroma exhaled through the nose after drinking coffee, examining the first breath and the total across ten breaths. Roasty compounds tended to decline quickly, while nutty and smoky compounds persisted for a time. Instrumental analysis was compared with sensory evaluation to help develop coffee flavors that considered both the opening impression and the subsequent finish.

A beverage’s aroma unfolds over time, from the moment of drinking through its aftertaste. Investigating not only how much of each compound is present but when it reaches the nose and how long it remains broadens the possibilities available to flavorists.

Japanese Vanilla Grown by Flavorists

Vanilla in Shintomi, Miyazaki, brings cultivation and creation even closer together. Following cooperation with the prefecture and town, the subsidiary Miyazaki Shintomi Farm began trial cultivation in 2022. The first planted vines flowered in 2025, and vanilla beans were harvested for the first time in February 2026. The whole growing area reached flowering in April that year, and a commemorative ceremony was held on May 1.

Here, flavorists participate from cultivation through curing. Freshly harvested green fruits have almost none of the sweet vanilla aroma we imagine. Curing, which controls conditions such as temperature and moisture to develop the aroma, is essential. The people evaluating the scent also participate in cultivation and processing, pursuing quality while analyzing the differences produced by changing conditions.

We believe our goal in vanilla cultivation is to achieve a quality uniquely attainable by a flavor and fragrance company.
Yutaka Ogawa, vanilla flowering ceremony, May 1, 2026 (translated from Japanese)

Rather than simply waiting for ingredients from the field, the company considers cultivation and processing in light of the aroma it wants. A company that began as an Osaka ingredient merchant now also reaches into how those ingredients grow.

International Expansion and Today’s Business

In Asia, the company established an Indonesian subsidiary in 1995, a Shanghai company in 2002, companies in Singapore and Taiwan in 2013, and a Thai subsidiary in 2018. It opened a Korean branch and Vietnamese office in 2019, followed by a Philippine branch in 2024. Development responds to local preferences while bringing Japanese materials and technologies overseas.

In Japan, the company opened its second Okayama factory in Tsuyama in May 2026. When the site was announced in 2025, the warehouse building had been completed and a manufacturing building was planned. Following the Okayama factory and Tsukuba site, it expands food and food-flavor production as the company’s third domestic production base.

Group sales for the year ended December 2025 were ¥44.5 billion, covering the entire business, including food flavors, fragrances, and aroma ingredients. Ogawa’s work has expanded from adding scent to products to designing ingredient production and use, and the situations in which aromas reach people.

An Aside: Welcoming People to Osaka through Scent

For the 2026 Semba Hina Meguri festival, Ogawa created fragrances inspired by the Peach Festival at the MUFG Bank Osaka Building, Osaka Exchange Building, and Sukunahikona Shrine. In a neighborhood connected to its founding, scent welcomes people in ways beyond products.

Milestones

February 1893: Hoko Genryo Ogawa Shoten is founded in Doshomachi, Osaka, directly importing and selling aromatic materials.
1924: Production of synthetic aroma ingredients, including linalool, begins.
1927: Ogawa Koryo Jiho, a publication sharing knowledge about flavors and fragrances, is launched. It ceases publication in 1944.
April 1933: The business incorporates as Ogawa Koryoten Co., Ltd.
1936–1938: Farms and manufacturing facilities for citronella and other materials, and experimental farms for patchouli and other plants, open in Taiwan.
1941: Cultivation of shiso and other plants and production of essential oils and extracts begin in Hokkaido.
November 1945: The company adopts its present name, Ogawa & Co., Ltd.
1954: SANIKU SUNDIA is established, leading to today’s SUNDIA.
1958: Production of the powdered flavor COATON begins.
1983: The Okayama factory opens, and the Osaka factory is fully relocated.
1986: Then-president Yoshiharu Ogawa receives the Medal with Blue Ribbon.
1995: An Indonesian subsidiary is established.
1999: The Maihama Research Institute opens.
2002: A Shanghai company is established.
2004: The Tsukuba site opens.
2013: Companies are established in Singapore and Taiwan.
2017: The Tsukuba Research Institute opens. The company introduces “Sense Japan.” Research on tea flavor using Darjeeling’s distinctive aroma is presented.
2018: The Thai subsidiary and Oita Saiki Farm are established. Ogawa Times is launched. Research on changes in coffee’s retronasal aroma over time is presented.
2019: Aroma collaboration agreements are signed with Oita Prefecture and organizations in Izu Oshima. A Korean branch and Vietnamese office open.
2021–2022: Lemon planting progresses in Saiki. Partnerships develop with Misato, Miyazaki Prefecture and Shintomi, and organizations in Okayama. Trial vanilla cultivation begins in Shintomi in 2022.
March 2023: A fragrance using Okayama peach blossoms is released.
2024–2025: A Muscat of Alexandria food flavor is announced, followed the next year by completion of a fragrance for cosmetics and related products. A Philippine branch opens in 2024.
2026: The first vanilla beans are harvested in Shintomi in February. The whole growing area flowers in April, with a commemorative ceremony on May 1. The second Okayama factory opens in May.