Akafuku (赤福) is a Japanese

pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...

shop founded in 1707, during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. Still active and family-owned, its longevity allows it to be part of the

Henokiens The Henokiens () is an association of companies that have been continuously operating and remain family-owned for 200 years or more, and whose descendants still operate at management level.. It derives its name from the biblical patriarch Enoch ( ...

. Akafuku first developed as a

teahouse A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment whic ...

for pilgrims going to

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Officially known simply as , Ise Jingū is a shrine complex composed of many Shinto shrines centered on two main shrines, and . The Inn ...

. It is the place of origin for akafuku mochi, a type of

rice cake A rice cake may be any kind of food item made from rice that has been shaped, condensed, or otherwise combined into a single object. A wide variety of rice cakes exist in many different cultures in which rice is eaten and are particularly preval ...

s filled with

sweet bean paste Sweet bean paste is a food ingredient used throughout East Asian cuisine, primarily as a filling for sweet desserts and pastries. Production The beans are usually boiled without sugar, mashed, and diluted into a slurry. The slurry is then strai ...

. It closed twice in its 300+ year history: during World War II when sugar became scarce, and in 2007 after authorities found that the company had tampered with expiration labels. Masutane Hamada, the 11th head of the business resigned after the scandal, but returned to the position in 2017. He resigned again in 2020 after it was found that he had allowed the company to supply "anti-social groups" (a

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

for the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

, or Japanese mafia) with alcohol bearing their logos between 2000 and 2012. In the 1990s the company invested more than US$120 million to develop the Okage Yokocho district of period stores which became a popular destination, driving the number of annual visitors from 200,000 to 3.4 million.

References

Food and drink in Japan Henokiens companies Japanese companies established in 1707 {{Japan-company-stub